


with the sun burning the dashboard

by theappleppielifestyle



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: F/M, M/M, Platonic Relationships, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rachel Lives, Road Trips, The official song for this fic is 'In Our Bedroom After The War' by Stars, These Kids Need To Work Their Shit Out, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2018-05-07 01:03:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 59,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5437691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theappleppielifestyle/pseuds/theappleppielifestyle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The war is over and everyone goes their separate ways until Marco suggests something to drag them back together.</p><p>(Or: the road-trip fic where everyone needs therapy, the teenagers attempt to have teenage experiences and Rachel never died.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Rachel wakes up with her nails hardening into claws.

The grizzly morph is second nature at this point. Sometimes she feels more at home with blood matted in her fur than she does in the skin she was born into.

She sits up to locate herself in her surroundings- she’s in a bed, and scratchy sheets tangle around her sweat-clad body. She’s been twisting in her sleep from a nightmare, if the fading adrenaline and the jump-started grizzly morph is anything to go by.

_Breathe. How did you get here?_

Rachel sucks in a breath, the morph halting as it floods in at her. She’s in the same hotel she’s been staying at for weeks now. Jordan, Sarah and their mother are sleeping in their own rooms across from her. They’re safe, just like Rachel’s safe.

It makes her laugh, a soft, bitter thing. They tried to send her to a therapist a month ago.

 _Hypervigilance_ , the therapist had said.

 _PTSD_ , she had said.

She probably had more to list off, but she had shut up pretty fast when Rachel had threatened to tear her eyes out and started going grizzly to do it.

The memory makes her sigh. She shouldn’t have done it, but she shouldn’t have done a lot of things.

Thinking about it instantly brings her back to Tom, the moment before Rachel murdered him. The cry that cut off in his throat-

 _No_ , Rachel thinks. Her eyes squeeze shut against the images. _No, I was right about that. That was necessary. Jake knew it, too._

She sits there for a few minutes, breathing in and out through her half-made throat, her face stuck as half-muzzle, half-human.

She goes stiff when the door opens, the adrenaline coming back with a vengeance, a battle plan already in her head. She’d barrel at them in a malformed mess of grizzly-human and hope her nails were sharp enough to dig into their throat-

“GAHHHH,” Jordan yells, recoiling. “SHIT!”

 _Shit_ , Rachel agrees. “I’m telling Mom you said that,” she says aloud, and it comes out slurred through her mostly-human mouth. The nerves are still there, racing through her edges, but she tells them to calm the hell down. It’s her _sister_ , for fuck’s sake. Jordan has never been a threat.

She starts morphing back, fur smoothing out into skin. “Sorry,” she says when her teeth are blunt again.

Jordan wavers at the door. She still isn’t used to it- how many times has she seen Rachel morph? Less than five times, at the most. “Bad dream?”

 _You don’t know the half of it._ “Yeah,” Rachel says.

Then she starts getting out of bed, because Jordan looks like she’s going to start saying things like _that therapist lady told us you’re gonna need to talk about stuff_ , and that’s the last thing Rachel wants to deal with right now.

“Breakfast on?”

Jordan nods, still looking wary.

“What is it?”

“Bacon and toast.”

“Awesome,” Rachel says. It feels wooden in her mouth.

Jordan sticks at her side as they make their way into the lounge. At one point their shoulders bump and Rachel has to fight the urge to jerk away. She still flinches, and she thinks Jordan notices.

Positive touches, Rachel knows, is another thing that therapist told her family to do with her. Because Rachel’s been through a war. Because she was a child soldier. Because she did unspeakable things and a lot of them involved getting ripped apart and Rachel needs to be reminded that touches can help as well as harm.

Which Rachel _knows_. She does. It’s just harder in practice, is all. Harder when all she expects after a touch is a hit to be coming her way.

There’s a woman in the kitchen in pressed clothing burning the toast. _Civilian_ , Rachel thinks as the woman curses under her breath.

The woman turns and beams when she sees Rachel. “Hey, you hungry?”

“Yeah,” Rachel says, though she isn’t sure it’s true. She hasn’t been eating much lately, nor getting hungry, which should worry her. “Thanks, mom.”

Naomi- mom- beams again as she hurries to the table with a plate. “It’s a little overdone, sorry.” Then she pauses. She leans over and presses a quick kiss to Rachel’s hairline. She’s been doing it often, since the attempt at therapy.

 _Positive touches_ , Rachel thinks.

“It’s fine,” Rachel says. Her mother, who hasn’t cooked more than a dozen meals for her in her whole life, has been making her breakfast, lunch and dinner since about a week after the war ended officially.

Rachel pokes at her breakfast. Her mother has cut her bacon into a smiley-face which lies on top of the toast. _Gotta admire her stubbornness_.

Sarah comes in, bleary-eyed and yawning. “Morning.”

“Morning,” they all answer back.

Sarah comes to slump at the table. “Mom? When’s my breakfast ready?”

But Naomi is turning off the stove and dropping the pan in the sink where it sizzles in protest. “I actually have to get going, I have a meeting about a new job-”

Rachel continues chewing her toast and bacon. She thinks she remembers her mom talking about that a few nights ago- they fired her from her last one, since ‘gone into hiding to protect self and family from being murdered by aliens for leverage’ wasn’t an available excuse at the time.

“-so you’re going to have to make it yourself, honey,” Naomi continues, wiping a grease stain off of her shirt. She looks up to shoot a quick, apologetic smile at Sarah, who looks livid.

“You made _Rachel_ breakfast!”

“Rachel-” Naomi wets her lips and doesn’t look at her. “Rachel’s been through a lot, you know that.”

Rachel glances over at Jordan, who is staring down at the table. Huh.

Sarah’s mouth opens.

There’s a knock on the door.

Everyone turns to look at it. Both Jordan and Rachel move to get up, but Naomi darts forwards in front of them. “I’ve got it.”

She disappears down the hall.

“Who do you think it is,” Jordan asks. She’s been getting taller lately, now that Rachel looks closely. She’s adopted the stretched look of a pre-teen, all elbows and legs- she might end up being as tall as her big sister.

Rachel shrugs, but a dozen suspects run through her mind. She shovels more toast into her mouth and looks over at Sarah, who glowers.

Jordan asks, “Do you think it’s another one of those government people?”

She sounds worried, but the kind of worried that means she’s trying to talk herself out of it.

Rachel chews and swallows. “Maybe.”

Jordan tears her gaze away from the hall to stare at Rachel. _Why aren’t you more worried about this,_ the stare says.

The toast sticks in Rachel’s throat. Her throat works several times to swallow it. “It’s going to be fine, Jordan.”

In a very tiny voice, Jordan says, “I heard they made Jake go to a trial for his- war crimes.”

That gets Sarah’s attention, her face shifting into confusion. “What? Jake’s a hero!”

She doesn’t get it yet. The things that had to do to end the war. Rachel’s simultaneously very glad and dreading the inevitable. She hates to think what her youngest sister’s face will look like when she hears that Rachel mauled people to death on a regular basis.

She hopes none of her family find out she enjoyed it.

Jordan glances at Rachel for support, because even if Rachel is ‘fragile’ at the moment, a habit is still a habit.

Rachel looks at Sarah and has no idea what to say. “Jake is a hero,” she says eventually, and goes back to her toast, wishing Sarah would leave it alone.

“So why are they- _ow_ ,” she snaps, presumably from where Jordan had kicked her under the table. “I’m just asking. I’m allowed to ask.”

“Not about some things,” Jordan says.

Rachel feels like she should disagree, but she doesn’t. She could live without ever hearing certain questions.

Sarah’s jaw locks. She looks as if she’s seconds away from storming away from the table and slamming the door to the room she’s sharing with Jordan.

That’s when their mom’s voice comes from the hall. “Rachel! Marco’s here.”

“He’s-” Rachel hastily swallows the last of her toast, then chokes on it. “He’s what,” she manages. “Mom?”

Naomi emerges from the hall, smiling like she isn’t sure she should be. Marco flanks her, hands in his pockets, grinning at Rachel like they’re meeting at the mall to go to the Gap.

“Hey, Rach.”

“Marco,” Rachel says slowly.

“Rachel,” Marco says, equally slow. He rocks back and forth on his heels. “Haven’t seen you since you flatlined on us. Well, I did, but you were unconscious after nearly getting mauled to death.”

She shrugs. It’s jerky. “I got better. That wasn’t a Monty Python reference, don’t-”

“I won’t.” He rolls his eyes. “I have some measure of maturity, _gosh_.”

“Mm.” She folds her arms, all too aware of her family’s gaze on them. “Heard you turned 17.”

“I did!” He flashes his teeth at her again. “Got my drivers’ licence, too.”

“First one in the group,” Rachel says, then wishes she didn’t. They aren’t a group anymore, they had been disintegrating before the war had even ended.

Marco notices. Of course he does, he’s Marco. But because he’s Marco, he doesn’t mention it. What he does do is say, “I am, and I’m going to hold it over all of your heads forever.”

Rachel looks him over and is surprised to see he’s actually gotten taller. He might be Cassie’s height now. His hair is glossy, cut stylishly around his ears.

She feels her own hair hanging in lank curtains on both sides of her face. The last time she washed it was… Tuesday? Wednesday? Before Friday, definitely.

“What happened to your clothes,” she hears herself ask.

Marco looks down at them. “What, these old things?”

“They’re not old. They’re new. They’re _good_. Did the war ending suddenly cure your fucked fashion sense?”

Her mother says, “Rachel,” in the same tone that she used before she noticed her daughter was falling apart around the edges.

“I can say _fuck_ ,” Rachel says. She doesn’t snap it. Maybe she should. It sounds like the sort of thing she should snap, but her voice comes out calm and even until it starts to shake. “I can say _fuck_ , okay, I can swear, I fought a war, I’ve killed so many people I can’t count them and I did it with my own paws, I killed Tom, I’ve had all of my limbs ripped off a dozen times each, I CAN SAY _FUCK_.”

It escalates to a yell and then cuts off quickly as Rachel feels her throat start constricting. She squeezes her eyes shut. _It’s fine. You’re fine. You’re safe. The war’s over, it’s out of your hands, you don’t have to do anything._

She startles out of it when the phone starts to ring.

“Answer it,” she sighs when Naomi doesn’t do anything about it.

Naomi wavers, but then she’s ducking past Rachel to take the phone off the wall. “Hello? Yes, it’s- yes, I’m still coming. I’ll be a little late, something came up. Yes. Thank you.”

 During this, Rachel looks at the wall near Marco’s face. He’s definitely gotten taller.

“I have to go,” Naomi says. She looks at all her daughters, then at Marco.

“I thought I’d stay and chat with Rachel,” Marco says.

Naomi looks dubious, but she says, “Okay,” and goes to get her handbag. “I’ll be back in an hour, okay?”

Both of the youngest daughters mutter some semblance of ‘okay,’ but Rachel stays quiet. She allows her mother to touch her shoulder, but shies away from the cheek-kiss.

“Let’s go into my room,” Rachel tells Marco so she won’t have to see her mother’s face wilt.

“Oh, the dreams I used to have about you saying that,” Marco says once they’re out of earshot. Then he coughs. “Sorry. Kidding.”

“Never gonna happen, Marco.” She smiles. It’s weak, but it’s the most genuine smile she’s produced in a while. She had almost forgotten Marco’s irritating charm, how it grew on her after a while.

“I know it isn’t,” Marco says, standing back to let Rachel open the door. “Believe me, I stopped even considering it would be a thing a year ago. Now it’s just habit. I know we’ll only ever be friends, I’m cool with it.”

Rachel stops, turning to face him. “Are we, Marco? Friends?”

Marco’s smile shutters. His eyes go serious. “I want us to be, Rach. I want all of us to be friends.”

“Fat chance.”

“Rach-”

“We’re so fucked up, Marco.” Rachel sits down on her bed. It’s still damp from her sweat. “We’re so fucked _up_.”

“What, us or our friendship?”

“Both.”

“Yeah.” Marco leans against the wall and rubs his thumb against his lip. “Yeah.”

Rachel looks over at him. He looks good, none of the bags under his eyes that were present for the whole last year of the war. He’s filled out, his shoulders getting broad under his shirt. And he looks more assured of himself.

“I heard you went on a talk show,” she says.

He looks up. “You didn’t watch it?”

“No. I’m avoiding the TV.” If the TV isn’t talking about the Animorphs, they’re talking about Yeerks, or Andalites, or other things that frequent Rachel’s nightmares.

Marco shrugs. “Fair enough.”

He pushes off the wall and comes to sit next to her on her bed. It sags under his weight. “Hey, are you doing okay?”

She gives him a look.

He laughs. “Yeah, dumb question.”

“You think?” She pulls her knees up, tucks them under her chin. She still can’t decide if she feels irreparably old or stupidly young, sometimes. Now is one of those times. “Why are you here, Marco?”

“I got a driver’s licence.”

“Good for you. So what?”

“So,” he says, and looks over at her. She’s starting to think he came out of the war with the least scars. “Let’s go on a road trip.”

She stares at him. “What, together?”

“Yeah. All of us, shooting the breeze. Claiming that open road. Racing down the highway-”

“Marco.” Her tone cuts him off short. “None of us have seen each other in months. I don’t even know where anyone _is_. Is Jake even allowed to leave that government place he’s been staying at?”

“So you know where Jake is.”

“Yes, I know where one of you is,” Rachel snaps.

“Lucky for you, I actually keep in contact with my friends. Well, I’ve been trying to. Everyone’s kind of been…” Marco trails off.

“Fucked up,” Rachel supplies.

Marco nods. “Good choice of words. Everyone’s been fucked up since the war ended. I mean, hey, we were fucked up before, but now we gotta actually deal with it. And we don’t have any impending doom looming over our heads to distract us.”

“Wow, I _miss_ that impending doom,” Rachel deadpans.

“That’s the spirit,” Marco says. He reaches like he’s going to squeeze her shoulder, then pauses. “If I touch you, are you gonna spaz out?”

“No,” Rachel says, before even considering it.

Marco drops his hand anyway. “If we keep on going like this, we’re gonna have mental breakdowns.”

“I’m already having one, Marco.”

“A bigger mental breakdown, then.” Marco folds his hands in his lap, then bends over to stare at them. His fingers twist together. “And maybe I miss you guys, alright?”

He looks up at her at that, a thin smile on his face.

Has Rachel missed them? The automatic answer is yes, of course- she’s bled with them, she’s held their intestines inside their bodies while they morphed. They spent the better part of three years in near-constant communication: sitting together at school hanging out at the mall, running for their lives, sitting in the barn planning their next assault.

Rachel’s thought about them over the past few months: a distant _Cassie would like this_ or _god that reminds me of that time when Ax-_

But she had always shoved the thoughts down and concentrated on sleeping, or working out, or aggressively watching old movies until spots appeared in her vision.

“None of us are on good terms, Marco.”

“None of us were on good terms before the war ended, either, and we still hung out.”

“Because we were ending a _war_ , Marco.” Rachel sighed, pushing her hands over her eyes before dropping them back down to the bed. “Maybe it’d be better if we just- let things lie.”

Marco’s lips go white as he presses them together. His gaze goes calculating, like it did when he was about to suggest a tactic that would get them out of the clusterfuck they always seemed to get themselves into. “So you’re saying that instead of going on an exciting adventure across the Midwest, you’d rather lounge around in your sweatpants all day, trying to forget last night’s screaming nightmare before you have to sleep again?”

Rachel narrows her eyes at him.

Marco continues, “Instead of braving the wilds in an outstanding act of courage and guts, you’d rather wallow in your own PTSD and ignore everything that’s outside your hotel room?”

“Marco.”

“Instead of waging a battle against the beasts of-”

“Who else is going?”

Marco blinks. “Wow, I didn’t think you’d actually go for that. Uh, I don’t know. You’re the first one I’ve asked.”

Rachel grits her teeth. “All of us stuck in a car together for eight hours a day for however many days sounds like it’s going to end in homicide.”

“It wouldn’t be long,” Marco promises. “A week. Maybe two.”

He straightens up, angling so they’re facing each other again. “Come on. You want to stay cooped up here? Really? You’re _Rachel_. You’re Xena, the warrior p-”

“Don’t.”

“Yeah, thought not.” He scratches at the back of his head. The usual flop of his hair is bouncier. Has he been using product? “At least consider it?”

Rachel takes in his hopeful face, his big, brown eyes that aren’t clouded with any of the bullshit Rachel is sure her eyes are glazed with. How the hell did Marco get out of this without scars knotting up his insides?

“I’ll go if everyone else does,” she says.

Marco fistpumps like he’s a regular 16 year old who’s never turned into a gorilla and ripped out a man’s spine. “Yes! Fuck, okay, good. Do you want to come with me to get Jake? He’s next.”

He must see something in her face, because he clears his throat. “His parents won’t be there. They aren’t allowed on the facility.”

Rachel nods tightly. “Then I’ll go.”

Jake, she can cope with. After all, he’s the one who ordered her to kill Tom. But Rachel doesn’t think she could stomach seeing Jake’s parents after she murdered their eldest son in cold blood.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

Everyone looks up at Jake when he walks into the mess hall.

Jake bites back a sigh. He’s been here for a month, and everyone still shut up and stares at him whenever they notice his presence.

He gets his food given to him, then goes down to sit at an empty table. The food here is crap, but he’s eaten worse back in the school cafeteria.

Briefly, he wonders how the school took the news that a bunch of teenagers were secretly fighting an alien war for several years. The whole school probably talked about some of the weird shit that happened- like that time Cassie took a dodgeball to the nose and didn’t notice her nose was gushing blood until someone told her, and then how she was puzzled for a second as to why a bleeding nose would be a problem when she had her arm sliced off by a Hork-Bajir blade last night. Like their odd absences, how tired they always were, how they seemed older than they were, sometimes.

He wonders if they know that weird exchange student they dragged along sometimes who said words like it was the first time he had ever said them and had an obsession with food was actually Ax in human morph.

From across the room, one of the agents catches his eye. Jake expects him to look away hastily, but instead he gets a respectful nod before the agent goes back to talking with his friend.

Another thing about staying here: when they aren’t treating Jake like a war criminal, they’re treating him like a soldier.

Jake finishes off his sandwich and his apple and goes to dump his tray in the cleaning bin. He’s brushing his hands free of crumbs when someone calls, “Berenson!”

Jake turns to see an agent he slightly knows jogging up. “Hey, Schmit.”

Schmit stops a foot in front of him and says, “There’s a visitor for you, sir.”

“I thought you didn’t allow visitors,” Jake says. That had certainly been the case for his parents, at least, even when they had complained that their son was sixteen damn years old and should be able to see his parents.

Schmit hesitates. “We made an exception for these ones, sir.”

Jake still doesn’t know how he likes being called sir. It feels like it used to when Ax called him _Prince Jake_ , before he had gotten used to it.

“Well, who is it?”

“It’s your cousin, sir. Rachel Berenson. She’s here with Marco-”

“Where are they?” Jake feels guilty for cutting him off, but it’s a distant guilt, a vague thing floating around the sudden buzz of _they’re here they’re here they’re here_.

“Visitor’s lounge, sir.”

“Great,” Jake says, starting to walk. He makes it a few steps before turning around. “Where’s that?”

“I’ll take you, sir.”

Jake nods, and lets Schmit fall into step with him. He doesn’t know Schmit very well, but he seems nice enough, so: “Could you stop calling me sir?”

Schmit startles. Then he covers it up, falling back into parade rest- army, Jake thinks. He acts like his grandfather used to sometimes, before the dementia set in. “You fought a war, sir. You _won_ the war. To me, that entitles you more respect than I’d usually give a 16 year old kid.”

That sounds fair. Jake walks in silence for another few turns. They haven’t really let him roam much around the facility, so all of this is pretty new to him. “Do you think I did the right thing?”

“Not always,” Schmit replies instantly. “But I think you did what you had to.”

Jake decides he likes Schmit, even if he’s still figuring out if he thinks he did the right thing. Sure, he’s told himself enough times that he did what he had to do, but sometimes it feels weak, like he’s trying to convince himself.

The visitor’s lounge is small, dotted with tables and chairs and a lone vending machine that two people stand around.

“C’mon,” the guy says. He has shoulder-length hair and a voice that sounds deeper than it did the last time Jake talked to him on the phone, weeks ago, a call right before they took him to the facility for the trial.

Beside him, the girl sighs. She tosses her long, blonde hair over her shoulder.

They both turn around when Schmit clears his throat.

Marco breaks out into a grin, and Jake blinks at him in surprise. “You look- different?”

“Good different? Handsome, I hope you mean. Devastatingly handsome, ruggedly, even-”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Jake says, but he’s smiling, too. He accepts Marco’s hug when he swings out his arms, and then steps back, Marco’s hand still on his shoulder.

Rachel looks different, too, but in a way Jake doesn’t think he should mention. Her eyes are sunken, her skin tight around her face, like she’s lost too much weight in too little time.

“Hey, cuz,” she says.

“Hey,” he says, and hugs her hesitantly with one arm. She feels awfully skinny in his arms- she’s lost muscle, even. Near the end of the war, she had been pretty ripped.

For a moment he thinks he’s made the wrong choice- she flinches in his arms and he starts to pull back, but then she’s wrapping one arm around him and squeezing once, hard and fast.

“Yeah, might want to ease back on the touchy-touchy,” Marco whispers in Jake’s ear.

Rachel tucks hair away from her eyes as she pulls back. “I heard that, Marco.”

“Oops,” Marco says, sounding entirely unapologetic. “So, Jakey. Aren’t you gonna ask why we’re here?”

“Not to bust me out, I’m guessing.”

“Nah,” Marco waves a hand. “You’re getting out in a day or two, there wouldn’t be a point to it.”

“I’m what? Who told you that?”

“The dude I convinced to let you out in a day or two,” Marco says, examining his nails. They’ve been cut into ovals and shined. It makes his hands look impeccably neat.

Jake stares. “Marco. What did you do?”

“Don’t worry,” Marco says. He puts an arm around Jake’s shoulder. “I used my newfound influence as a rising star to pull some strings. Convinced some high-up dude you didn’t need to be kept under surveillance. It’s not like you’re gonna commit any more war crimes if they let you out, right? Not that you committed any,” Marco adds.

“Technically,” Jake starts, but Marco talks over him.

“So! How do you feel about a road-trip, ol’ buddy, ol’ pal, ol’ friend?”

“A road-”

Rachel cuts in. “Does he have to be here?”

Jake turns to see her pointing at Schmit, who’s standing at attention near the door.

“Yes,” Jake says.

Rachel makes a face.

“None of us can drive,” Jake says.

Marco digs in his pocket and comes up with a pair of car keys dangling off his fingertips. “Ta-da! Got my licence three days ago.”

“He drove us here,” Rachel says. “He’s okay.”

“I am a stunning driver.”

“I’ve been in a car you were driving,” Jake says. “It was terrifying.”

“Pshhh-”

“You knocked over a whole neighbourhood’s trash cans.”

Marco flings his hands out. “I was fourteen! I’m good at driving now, my mom taught me these past few months. I got a licence from an actual professional driving instructor person.”

“Really? You didn’t use your influence as a rising star to coerce him?”

Marco mock-gasps. “How _dare_ you, Jake. I would never.”

“Uh-huh,” Jake says. He’s grinning. Shit, when was the last time he grinned? His lips feel like they should be creaking with disuse. He’s missed Marco. “What brought this on?”

“What, the road-trip?” Marco shrugs. “Didn’t we plan to have one when one of us got our licence?”

“Yeah, but that was before.”

None of them need to clarify what _before_ meant. They’ve all sliced their life into sections- before the war, during it-

“And now it’s after,” Marco says. The keys jingle when he shakes them. “Come oooon. Two weeks at most. Just us and the open road. No army guys hanging over your head. Chillin’ with your crew.”

“You’re sure this is a good idea?” Jake looks towards Rachel. “There are things- I mean, most of us haven’t talked in a while.”

Marco hums. His jaw starts moving and Jake realizes he has gum in his mouth.

“We’ll be fine. We’ve survived way too much to kill each other during a road trip, right?”

“That’s not comforting, Marco.”

“I’m a very comforting guy, excuse you,” Marco says mildly. He blows a gum bubble and they all watch as it expands.

Rachel pops it with a fingernail and Marco yelps, shooting her a look before he starts sucking it back into his mouth.

“It’ll be fun,” Marco says once most of it is back. “When was the last time you had fun, Jakey-boy?”

Jake considers. It had been back before they went into hiding, and probably a few months before that happened. At school, maybe- odd enough as it sounds, it had been relaxing to pretend he was just a student whose biggest worries were homework and shitty teachers.

Marco leans forwards. “Tell you what. You can’t leave for a few days even if you wanted to, so we’ll swing back to see if you’re coming after we’ve checked in with everyone else.”

“Okay,” Jake says.

Marco nods, clutches Jake’s shoulder and then starts to leave, Rachel in front of him. Then he stops, twists his head so he can look at Jake. “We’re seeing Cassie next, by the way. She’s staying with her parents in their new house.”

Something well-worn and very warm stirs in Jake’s chest. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Marco says. “Anything you want me to pass along?”

Jake thinks back to the last time he and Cassie saw each other. It had been after they dragged Rachel and Tom out, Tom confirmed dead and Rachel confirmed as stable. Cassie had been sitting with her head in her hands, breathing shakily.

Jake had sat next to her. Neither of them had said anything. A few months before this, Jake would’ve reached for her hand, maybe- but there was too much dead history between them at that point.

Eventually, Cassie’s breathing had evened out.

Jake had asked, _are you going to go see Rachel?_

 _I already did_ , Cassie said _. She was unconscious, but- she should be fine. They say she should be fine._

Her hands were trembling. Jake’s fingers itched with the old want to touch them, but he was just so _tired_. He couldn’t handle her reaction, whichever way it turned out. He wanted to climb in bed and sleep for the rest of his life no one would have him make any more decisions.

They had sat there for a while, breathing next to each other and not talking. After about half an hour, Cassie had said _I’m sorry_ and gotten up. She walked off, and Jake hadn’t watched her.

Now, he wonders what she was sorry about. About leaving? About their relationship, dead before it could be called alive? About a hundred other things they probably needed to be sorry to each other about?

Jake swallows. “Tell her I said I hope she’s doing okay.”

Marco’s mouth twitches, but Jake thinks it looks more sad than anything. “You got it, our fearless leader.”

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

“Cassie, I’m coming in.”

The door opens and Cassie turns to face her father.

He jerks, and then sighs. “Cassie. That better be you, otherwise there’s a skunk in the house and I really don’t want to deal with that right now.”

<It’s me, dad.>

He sighs. “Never thought I’d be hearing my only daughter communicate through telepathy while in the body of a skunk. Life, huh? Why are you a skunk, anyway? Did something need to get sprayed?”

<No, I just wanted to be a skunk for a while. Hold on, I’m morphing out.>

Her dad leans on the door and waits until she’s human again, sitting on her bed in her skintight black leotard. It’s been pinching at her lately, she definitely needs to buy a new one. Also a sports bra- she can’t get away with what she could’ve at 14, bra-wise.

“Hi,” she says when her mouth is flat again. “Did you need me for something?”

He gives her a searching look.

“What?”

“You’ve been spending a lot of time in morph, Cass.”

She crosses her legs underneath her- her legs are stubbly, and she runs her hands over them. “I suppose so.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“Not right now.” Cassie smiles, trying to look supportive. It helps, talking with her parents, but they tire her out sometimes. There are things she’d prefer not to talk about.

“Okay,” he says. He comes to sit next to her, putting an arm around her shoulders.

She leans into him, lets her head rest against his shoulder. “I’m fine, dad. Really. Just- finding it a little hard in my own head, lately.”

“We’ve noticed,” he says. “We talked it over- it’s okay, as long as you don’t take it overboard.”

“I’m not,” she says. She isn’t- she used to spend a few hours in morph every day, or every couple of days, even when they weren’t on a mission. It calmed her down, and she definitely needs calming down nowadays.

She says, “I’ve been thinking about going back to high school.”

“Yeah?” Her dad’s bushy eyebrows shoot up. “That sounds like a good idea. You sure? You might get treated differently, given all that’s happened.”

“I’ll get treated differently no matter what I do, dad.”

“You could get your GED without physically going back, if you want. There are ways.”

“I’m considering all the options,” Cassie says. She feels her dad’s shoulder lift and fall as he sighs.

“I know, sweetheart.” Her dad shifts and Cassie has to rearrange her head. “Been spending much time with Lili, lately?”

“Yeah,” Cassie says. “We went shopping a few days ago?”

“Yeah? Good. It’s good to get out of the house.”

“I get out of the house.”

“Good to get out of the house in human form,” her dad amends. His gaze softens. “Have you heard from any of the others?”

That’s how her parents refer to them now: the others.

“No,” Cassie says. “I called Rachel’s hotel a couple weeks back, but no-one answered. Tobias is- god knows where he is, and it’s the same with Ax. I think they’re sticking together, though. In the same woods, anyway. Jake- well, I expect he’s still busy with the aftermath of the trial, they haven’t let him out yet. But Marco and I have talked on the phone a few times this month.”

“Really?” He sounds surprised, and Cassie doesn’t blame him. She and Marco were never that close, even with the war on.

Or, well- they were all close. They were a family, stitched together out of necessity: they pulled each other out of the fire and stood together during their most painful and intimate moments. They were all close, thanks to the war, but Cassie and Marco never went out of their way to spend time together.

Cassie nods. “I think he’s taking the war ending better than the others.”

“And you,” her dad says, frowning slightly.

“And me,” Cassie agrees. She pats his hand. “I’m okay, dad.”

“It’s okay not to be okay, you know that, right?”

“Yes, dad, you told me,” Cassie says, and bites her lip. “I’m- not okay? But I’m getting there. I can see it from here. I’m going to be okay.”

Her dad smiles down at her, the worried crease between his brows still not fading.

A yell rings out from her mother downstairs. “Cassie! You have a visitor!”

Cassie raises her head, puts her feet on the floor. “Who is it,” she calls.

“Come and see!”

It’s her turn to frown. She’s been told she looks just like her dad when she does it.

She climbs down the stairs, her dad on her heels. She turns into the lounge at the bottom of the stairs and stops, staring.

She sees Marco first. Her first thought is an appreciative whistle- she’s always thought Marco was pretty, but he’s downright gorgeous now, or at least far down the road into getting gorgeous. He’s primped and polished, all easy edges, but even without it he’d be attractive with his new, broad shoulders and- did he get taller? She remembers him coming up to Rachel’s chin, not her nose.

“Hey, Cassie,” he says, and it hadn’t been a mistake she heard down the phone: his voice is deeper.

“Hi,” she says, and is opening her mouth to ask what he’s doing here when she spots Rachel.

 _Rachel_. Cassie has to stop herself from flinging herself into her arms- for one, she’s sure Rachel would deck her. She thinks Rachel is still cut up about Cassie not trusting her, and judging by the tightness in her face, that thought is solidifying into a belief.

She’s beanpole-thin, her  t-shirt is shapeless and baggy around her. She’s wearing jeans Cassie thinks she wouldn’t have been caught dead in a year ago, and she’s in jandals.

Still- she pulls it off, making it look like Effortless Chic. Or maybe Dirty Chiche. Classic Rachel.

Rachel doesn’t say anything, but her face flickers when Cassie takes an unconscious step closer. It’s not a good flicker.

Cassie forces herself to stop. Instead, she says, “Hi, guys. What are you doing here?”

“We were in the neighbourhood,” Marco says. Then he sucks air through his teeth and says, “Actually, we weren’t, but we made it so we were in the neighbourhood. How do you feel about a road trip?”

Cassie reels. “A road- are you serious?”

“Deadly,” Marco says, and flashes his teeth at her. “The old gang back together again! What do you say?”

“What do the others say about this?”

“Rachel’s game is everyone else is,” Marco says, hooking his thumb over his shoulder to point at her. “And Jake’s thinking it over. We haven’t caught up with Ax or Tobias yet, but we’re headed there. Oh, and Jake sends his eternal love.”

He hisses when Rachel digs an elbow viciously into his ribs. “Ow, shit!”

“He says he hopes you’re doing okay,” Rachel tells her. Her face is heavily guarded.

“Oh,” Cassie says. “Okay.”

Marco scowls, rubbing his side. He opens his mouth, but Rachel talks over him:

“Are you coming?”

They both look over at her, along with her parents.

Cassie stares at her. She had thought she was going to watch Rachel die, the day the war ended. She thought she was going to have to content herself with the fact that Rachel’s last words- _I love you_ \- were directed at Tobias and not at any of the rest of them.

But here she is, Rachel in all her gaunt glory, arms folded and expression like she’s facing off an enemy and not her best friend. The girl who _used_ to be her best friend, Cassie amends.

Rachel looks at her expectantly. Why is she even asking Cassie?

“Do you _want_ me to come,” Cassie asks.

Rachel looks stricken, but only for a moment. Her jaw sets. “Of course.”

“Then I’ll come.”

Rachel nods. Beside her, Marco whoops.

“Great! Two to go. Cassie, you want to come with us to see if Tobias and Ax are in? I heard they’re hanging in the same forest.”

Cassie looks at her parents. “Is- am I even allowed?”

They’re standing together, her dad’s arm around her mom’s waist. They both look uncertain, but her mom says, “I… think it’d be good to spend some time with your friends. To go away for a little bit. Clear your head. Dear?”

Her dad nods. “Yes. Yes, that would be- it’d be good. You have fun, Cassie.”

Cassie turns back to Marco. “Uh. I guess. I have to pack first, though.”

Marco claps. “Cool, we’ll help. C’mon, Rach. Your room’s up there, right?”

Rachel looks irritated when he takes her elbow and leads her to the stairs, but she doesn’t shake him off.

Cassie follows them up, keeping a few steps behind so she doesn’t bump into Rachel by mistake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

It’s been a good day- Tobias has hardly had to flap, what with all these thermals under his wings. His belly is full of fresh mouse, and the wind is rifling through his feathers as he flies.

He’s not flying for any particular reason, today. Sometimes he just does it to get out of his head, to feel the sun on his back.

He scans his forest as he flies- it’s becoming more familiar to him the more weeks he spends here. He already knows the layout of the trees and where the river runs, he knows all the best eating spots and where the animals make their burrows.

There’s a wild mouse scurrying through the undergrowth below him. The hawk part of him sits up to take interest, but Tobias flies on. He won’t need to eat for a while, what with the size of the badger he ate this morning, plus the mouse he had for lunch.

Off in the distance, a van starts driving towards the woods. Tobias eyes it- sometimes they get people coming out for hikes, or teenagers come to make out under the canopies. Once, a few of them even stumbled in on Ax as he was out crushing grass under his hoofs for dinner.

Luckily, the teenagers had been high at the time, so hopefully they had chalked it down to that and not told anyone. Even with the human race finding out about aliens, Ax had wished for solitude, and that didn’t come easily when humans were always coming around his part of the woods to take pictures.

Even if the teenagers had told people, no-one’s shown up about Ax yet.

Until now.

Tobias circles back around to get a closer look at the van. It’s classic paedophile style, white with blacked out windows.

He flies in lazy circles as the van pulls over at the side of the road and passengers start getting out.

At first, Tobias shoves it away as wishful thinking. But then he flies closer to concentrate and yes, there’s the cornflower hair, the sharp lines of her face, the bright blue eyes he thought he might never see again-

It stops Tobias in his tracks and he nearly starts falling when a thermal fails to catch him. He flaps, catches sight of Marco and Cassie as they get out of the van with her.

 _What the fresh hell are you guys doing here_ , Tobias thinks. He loses sight of them through the trees and flies over them. There’s a clearing, and he hangs back. To them, he should be only a spot in the sky.

“Tobias!”

It’s faint, but it’s there. Marco’s yelling, his hands cupped around his mouth and his head tipped up towards them.

“That you, buddy?”

Tobias flies higher.

“Come on, we just want to talk.”

Tobias considers. He hasn’t talked to anyone other than Ax in months, if he doesn’t count their trips into the nearest town, where talking ends up being inevitable when he has to apologize for Ax’s behaviour.

He flies down, landing in a tree above their heads.

Marco’s grinning. “Man, I’ve missed your smiling face.”

<I haven’t missed your bad jokes,> Tobias replies, but fondness seeps into it.

“You wound me, you know that,” Marco says.

Tobias says, <Hi, Cassie. Rachel.>

“Hi,” Cassie says.

Rachel says nothing. Tobias pretends it doesn’t sting. What else should he expect? He had tried to talk with her, after she woke up from killing Tom. But she had pushed him away, pushed all of them away and left the hospital before she was allowed.

<What are you guys doing here? Did something happen?>

“It did,” Marco says. “I got my licence.”

<Your driver’s licence?>

“No, my forklift licence. Yes, my driver’s licence!”

Is this what they came all the way out here for? <Uh, congratulations?>

“Thank you!” Marco bows, a short dip of a thing. “How do you feel about road trips?”

<They’re smelly.>

“Well, that’s what you get when you cram six teenagers into a car together. It starts to stink.”

It clicks. <You want us to go on a road trip?>

“Yep!”

<Why?>

“Why not?” Marco pockets his hands. He looks very different, Tobias notices. He almost looks like a grown up.

<It wouldn’t end well.>

“And who’s saying that?”

<I am. Rachel is.>

“I didn’t say anything,” Rachel protests.

God, but Tobias has missed the sound of her voice. Sometimes, when he’s flying, her _I love you_ will creep into his head and set up roots.

He looks at her. <No, but your posture is. So’s your face.>

“Excuse me for having an expression,” she snaps.

Cassie says, “Rachel,” like it’s the old days, like she’s the Rachel-tamer and she can just put a hand on her shoulder and Rachel will draw back under her touch.

But it’s not the old days, it’s now, and Rachel jerks violently under Cassie’s hand.

Cassie lets go of her shoulder like she got burned by it.

“I’m going if everyone else is,” Rachel says, still snappish, but there’s an undertone that trembles. Her chin juts out. “Is that alright with you, bird-boy?”

 _What happened to us_ , Tobias thinks. What the hell happened to the Rachel who stared at the screen that had all of her friends in it and told Tobias she loved him with what she thought was her dying breath? What happened to the Rachel-and-Cassie who laughed and held hands and supported each other through everything? What happened to any of them, sticking through the tough parts only to abandon each other when things were supposed to get easy again?

<But you don’t want me to come.>

“Of course I fucking want you to come.”

<Then why are you being like this?>

Rachel snarls. It’s almost like having the old her back. “I don’t know, okay? It’s been a shitty couple of months.”

Marco clears his throat. He seems impatient. “If you two are done with your lover’s tiff?”

They all glare at him.

Marco squirms. “Uh, so! Tobias?”

Tobias shifts on his branch. <I’m game if Ax is.>

“Awesome,” Marco says, eyes flitting around the trees. “So hey, where _is_ Ax-man?”

The skittishness suddenly makes sense. If Tobias had lips, he’d be smiling. <In the east of the forest. Follow me.>

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

Ax supresses a sigh as he grinds his hoof down on a tuft of grass. It’s not that he doesn’t like grass, he does- it’s just that he doesn’t like eating it for every single meal.

It might be due time for him to morph human. He does so about once a week, to walk down to the nearest town and try out any food that looks interesting. Tobias often joins him, but not always. Ax doesn’t mind- though he enjoys the company, it is also a new experience to walk around on his own and do as he pleases. Though, this often ends up with him explaining that he is sorry he does not understand human customs, since he is an alien.

This usually ends with him morphing back to prove it, and the human bothering him will most likely scream and run away or try to hit him.

So Tobias’ assistance is often helpful.

He makes a mental note to journey deeper into the forest to find Tobias and ask him if he wishes to go into town tomorrow.

After he finishes eating, he goes to his phone and picks it up. The keypad is difficult, as it is not made for a creature with as many fingers as Ax, and Ax has not got around to configuring it yet.

He morphs to human- easier to operate, fingers-wise, and he needs a mouth to talk into the receiver.

He dials in Marco’s number. But just like several other days before, it goes to voicemail.

“I am beginning to get worried,” Ax admits after the beep. “I have been checking the television to see if you are in trouble. Nothing has come up yet, but I have been told that the news often lies. Please call me back when you get this. Goodbye.”

As the phone clicks back into its receiver, he hears a rustle of wings. “Hello, Tobias. Ssss.”

<Hey, Ax. I brought visitors.>

Ax turns. He feels his eyebrows raise as Marco comes into his scoop, grinning. He looks very different- his hair is shorter, he's wider in his shoulders. Ax finds he wants to keep looking at him for a very long time.

What is that phrase humans use?

“Speak of the demon!”

“Devil,” Marco says. “What, you were thinking about me?”

“I just finished leaving you a message,” Ax says. “It seems that was pointless. Hello.”

“Hi,” Marco says, and hugs him.

Ax hugs him back. He’s been told he’s good at hugs, which he’s unusually proud of. Secretly, he thinks Marco’s hugs are better than anyone’s, including his. Though he’s beginning to think that he might be biased when it comes to Marco.

Marco slaps him on the back as he pulls away. It’s a thing humans do, and Ax sees it routinely on the TV. He slaps Marco back, perhaps too hard.

“Oof,” Marco says. His hand lingers on Ax’s back, then his shoulder. “How you been doing, man?”

“I have been good.” Ax is grinning along with Marco, something he has found he cannot help, sometimes. “You did not mention you were coming to visit.”

“Thought I’d make it a surprise,” Marco says. “And, uh, it was kind of an impulse decision.”

“Well, I am pleased by it,” Ax says.

Marco beams.

Strangely, Ax’s stomach twists. It has done so before when he ate too much and became nauseas, but he is slightly hungry at the moment.

“You okay, man?”

“My stomach made a worrying movement,” Ax tells him. "Ent."

Marco’s face scrunches. Ax has never understood the human term dubbed ‘cute,’ but he finds some of Marco’s facial expression even more appealing than others.

A voice says, “Hello, Ax,” and he looks up to see Cassie entering his scoop.

Ax straightens. “Hello, Cassie. You came here with Marco.”

“And Rachel,” Cassie says, looking back over her shoulder just in time for Rachel to emerge, picking leaves out of her hair.

“Hello, Rachel,” Ax greets, wondering if she is sickly.

“Hey,” Rachel says. “Marco, you wanna not ditch us next time to go see your boyfriend?”

“Haaaaa ha ha,” Marco says, too loud and too pitched to be real laughter. “You’re so funny, Rach. So funny.”

Rachel looks at him oddly, as does Cassie. Ax cannot decipher most of Tobias’ expression when he is in hawk form, but he thinks he is also watching Marco.

“So,” Marco says. His hands are in his pockets and he is shifting about the way he does when he gets excited. “You know what a road trip is?”

“They are a prominent feature in many feel-good movies,” Ax says. “Why?”

“How do you feel about going on one?”

Ax blinks. It often feels strange doing it with only two eyes. Every time he morphs into human form, he has to adjust to it all over again. “With you? Oo?”

“With all of us. The Animorphs.”

Ax looks around at them. “Everyone has agreed to this?”

“Pretty much everyone, yeah. Jake is still on the fence, but I’m 90% sure he’ll say yes when we get back to him. If you’re busy, I get it. You have that long-distance duty thing going on.”

“I can do that from wherever I wish,” Ax says. “I can do my job sufficiently on a road trip, if there are pay-phones in opportune places.”

“So you’re in?”

“Yes. I am in.”

“ _Yeah_ ,” Marco says through his teeth, pumping his fist into the air. “I definitely didn’t think this would work. Fuck. Okay, lets’ go pick up Jake and get this party _started_! To the van, my people!”

As Ax pauses to gather his necessary things, he notices that other than Marco, no-one else looks particularly enthused.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

Marco is _pumped_.

He is _amped up_. He is _ready_.

“I am _ready_ ,” he announces to the rest of the van.

He mostly gets a series of grunts, along with a low chirp from Tobias.

Ax, though- because Ax is _awesome_ \- asks, <For the road trip?>

“For the road trip,” Marco confirms. He drums his fingers on the steering wheel. He considers turning the radio on so he can actually have something to drum along to, but he doesn’t think Rachel would appreciate it and he’s counting down to when she’ll finally deck one of them.

He’s hoping it won’t be him. He knows she’s thought about it before, so she’d have years’ worth of fantasies behind her fist.

Ax asks, <We are on the road, and we are on a trip to get Prince Jake. Does this not mean we are already on the road trip?>

Marco grins. Ax says ‘road trip’ like the letters at the start of the words are capitalized. It’s adorable. “Isn’t official ‘til we have everyone on board, Ax-man.”

<Ah,> Ax says.

Marco glances at him in the rear-view mirror. Since Andalities don’t fit into carseats, he’s splayed out across the back three seats. “You doing okay, Ax?”

<I am comfortable. Thank you.>

“Cool, let me know if that changes.” Marco continues to drum on the steering wheel until Rachel snaps at him to cut it the hell out.

He does, and he makes a smart remark back at her, but his worry is ratcheting up higher the closer they get to Jake. He still isn’t sure if this is a great idea or so colossally bad they’ll end up all killing each other.

Marco wants them to go back to how they were, is the thing. Or, no: they’re all irreparably changed and he knows it. He’s fully aware just how fucked up they’ve all gotten, how twisted their relationships with each other had become during the final months of the war.

There’s no going back after that.

But maybe they can get past this. They can get through it and change again, shift into something else entirely. Sure, it won’t be easy, but it’s got to be easy than winning the war, right?

In the seat behind him, Rachel starts idly kicking the back of his seat. Her hands twitch in her lap.

Cassie watches, eyes big and sad like she wants to comfort her but has no idea how the hell to start.

Tobias is in the backseat with Ax, perched on his shoulder. Even in human morph, Tobias rarely has facial expressions anymore, but if he did, and if he were human, Marco would bet his second-hand van that he’d be making mournful puppy eyes in Rachel’s direction.

All Marco can see is the piercing hawk glare, but still. He’d bet his _entire van_.

Or, maybe not puppy eyes. They’ve moved past puppy eyes. He’s not sure anyone who’s been through the crap Tobias has been through would even be capable of puppy eyes. Tearful eyes, maybe. Eyes that swim with the ghosts of a hundred possible futures that are now never to come to pass.

Yeah, that one sounds about right.

At least Ax seems to want to be here, although he’s been picking up on the tension the further they drive. It’d be hard not to, Marco supposes.

The sun stings in Marco’s eyes. He flips the sun visor down.

 _This is a good idea,_ he tells himself. _No-one’s going to kill each other. I’m pretty sure no killing will happen on this road trip. Almost 70% sure._

With that comforting thought, Marco pulls onto the highway that will take them to Jake, and in turn will start off the Animorphs’ first and probably only road trip.


	2. Chapter 2

Jake has been in the van for six hours.

Beside him, in the drivers’ seat, Marco has been whistling for approximately forty minutes. Jake has been counting, because it feels like it’s been an eternity.

Other than the obligatory greetings and ‘how’ve you been’s when Jake got in, so far no one’s said anything since Jake climbed in the passenger’s seat.

He thinks Ax might be communicating with Marco in private thought-speak occasionally, because once or twice Marco lets out a sound like a muffled laugh and glances in the rear view mirror to where Ax is lying across the backseat. Jake did wonder about that- they could also get Ax to morph into a human or something smaller, but then he’d have to bother with demorphing every two hours.

Jake sort of feels like he’s sitting in a minefield. What the hell is he supposed to say to any of these people?

Thankfully, Marco solves his problem by piping up.

“Hey, Jake.”

“Yeah?”

Marco keeps his eyes on the road. His voice is casual as he says, “You know I had, like, this huge crush on you until about two years ago, right?”

“Ha, ha,” Jake says. It’s almost automatic.

Marco says, “Dude.” He glances over at Jake as he sits at a red light. “I’m serious.”

Jake stares at him. He continues staring as Marco starts driving again and has to watch the road.

“…What,” he manages finally. “Marco, what?”

<It was kind of obvious,> Tobias says. He’s moved from Ax’s shoulder to sitting next to his hoofs.

Jake twists in his seat to look at him. “You knew?”

<Well, yeah. Marco isn’t exactly subtle.>

“You take that back, Tobias,” Marco says. He swears under his breath when he nearly clips a lamppost as he passes. “We’re good, I didn’t crash. I can’t look away from the road, is Jake still freaking out?”

“I’m not freaking out,” Jake says. He looks at Rachel and Cassie. “Did you guys know?”

They both shake their heads. Cassie looks a weird combination of dazed and impressed, and Rachel is wearing the closest thing to her war grin Jake has seen her have since the war ended.

“I guessed, but I never thought it’d be true,” Rachel says. She leans forwards and her hair falls over one shoulder. “All those times you were hitting on me, you were overcompensating, huh?”

“No, I was entertaining a feeble fantasy,” Marco says, darting a look back at her and nearly swerving into a line of cones because of it. “Shit. We’re good, we’re good.”

“Stop nearly crashing,” Jake tells him. “You said you were good at driving now!”

“I’m good at driving when I’m looking at the road,” Marco says. “Quit making me look away, sheesh. And I’m not gay, Rach. I like dudes and girls.”

Rachel pauses. “Is that a thing?”

“I can’t look away from the road because I’ll kill us all, but imagine I’m glaring at you,” Marco says. He turns on his indicator about thirty seconds before they’re going to turn. “Rachel. Sweet, dubiously sane Rachel. We have literally turned into various kinds of animals. We have witnessed an alien invasion and lead the resistance against said invasion. I _think_ I can like girls and guys.”

Tobias laughs in all of their heads.

<We have a name for that on my planet,> Ax says. Then he says a word that Jake couldn’t pronounce unless he sounded it out for minutes beforehand.

“Think I’m gonna wait until earth comes up with a name for it, but thanks, Ax,” Marco says. He’s tapping the steering wheel again, more erratically this time.

Cassie asks, “When did this happen?”

“What, when did I realize? I don’t know. Sometime during the war,” Marco says, in a tone of voice that Jake knows means he knows the exact date and probably the time he realized. “I had a brief crisis, but it was in the middle of eight hundred other more important crisises, so it kind of fell to the wayside and by the time I could actually breathe long enough to think about it I wasn’t freaking out anymore.”

Jake nearly says _you could’ve talked to me about it_. But could Marco have talked to him about it? He doubts Marco would have added on to Jake’s list of things to think about. God knows Jake had- and still has- too many things on his mind, pressing in from all sides.

“Thanks for telling us, Marco,” Cassie says. She’s smiling, Jake can tell without looking at her. Has he seen Cassie smile since the war ended? He thinks she smiled at him when he got in the van, but it had been fast and shy enough that he hardly noticed.

Marco shrugs. His shoulders are stiff. “You guys are cool with it, right,” he asks after the van has fell back into silence.

He gets positive affirmations all around. Rachel even leans up again and says, “Like you said, Marco. We battled aliens and transformed into animals. I think we can be cool with you liking guys.”

“And girls.”

“And girls,” she says, and leans back. For a moment, she looks like the old Rachel, Rachel before or maybe even in the beginning of the war.

Marco nods. “Okay. Good. Jake?”

“What,” Jake says. Then: “Oh! I’m, I’m cool with it. Of course I’m cool with it.”

“You don’t _sound_ cool with it.”

“I’m just surprised,” Jake admits. “I wasn’t expecting it.”

“I’m totally over you, I mentioned that, right?”

“You did.”

“Good.”

Jake looks out the window. Then he looks at Marco, who is intent on not crashing a van full of people into a building. “Hey, Marco.”

“Yes, my heterosexual friend?”

How the hell didn’t Jake notice before? He always assumed Marco was joking, he guesses. “Was it hard getting over me?”

That gets Marco to give the windscreen a confused look. “Uhhh. Not really?”

“No, seriously. It must have been an incredibly painful process, getting over someone like me.” He sighs dramatically. “I don’t envy you, Marco. I really don’t. The anguish you must have gone though-”

He doesn’t know why he tries to joke around. Doing it is like dragging up someone he used to be and puppeting them with clumsy fingers, but Jake’s trying, he’s been struggling through the dark so goddamn long he can’t remember what it feels like to do anything else-

Marco starts laughing and a crack of light appears in Jake for the first time in a long while. Something so simple, he thinks: his best friend driving next to him, face creasing in delighted laughter.

Of course Marco is the least broken out of all of them. Not completely unbroken, of course- there are places he’s irreparable, places that won’t ever work again, but out of all of them, he’s the one who’s kept himself together the most, who’s lost the least amount of pieces of himself.

“Oh, _please_ , Berenson. You took a weekend and a movie marathon to get over. Get over yourself.”

“Whatever you say, man. Go cry over me in your pillow.”

“Someone smack our fearless leader for me, please,” Marco calls back into the van.

It’s Rachel who sits up, of course. She leans over and swats Jake over the back of the head. There’s no malice in it, not that Jake can tell- she hit him softly, almost like she wasn’t interested.

“Thank you,” Marco says. He shifts in his seat. “Wow, I didn’t realize I’d have to stay still for so long.”

<You’re _driving_ ,> Tobias points out.

“Whatever,” Marco says. “Anyone else have any revelations to announce, sexual or otherwise? Don’t be shy.”

Marco kept them all sane- Marco with his jokes at inappropriate times, Marco with his ruthlessness and stubbornness to keep all of them alive, Marco who would follow them all to the ends of the earth, bitching about it the whole way there.

Jake turns his gaze out to the window. Outside, everything blurs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one day I hope to finish this fic! it is one of my goals! but life and university and other writing has impeded that goal! 
> 
> anyway, sorry for the hiatus. my fic-writing is all or nothing, and i've had a lot of other things to focus on.
> 
> EDIT: Some lovely person has commissioned me to finish this fic! I can't say when it'll be finished, as I have another commission and a charity fic to work on and I have class for the next 4 months (and then I might be working full time over the summer) but I promise this fic WILL GET FINISHED. Even if it takes me ANOTHER TWO YEARS. 
> 
> ( I really hope it doesn't take another two years oh my god thank you guys so much for holding out for the fic I love you all)


	3. Chapter 3

After Marco’s impromptu coming-out, nothing happens for miles. They lapse back into silence, but not the stiff kind. Marco’s revelation had given them a minute or two where they’d talked like they didn’t have years of war and bloodshed behind them.  

The silence they sit in now is- well, _easy_ would fall short. It’s not easy, but it’s easier. Rachel, for one, feels less like she’s going to burst into grizzly morph if someone brushes her elbow by accident.

She tracks the scenery with her eyes. They’re out of the city now, speeding along a highway, and Rachel thinks back to something she isn’t sure is a memory or a dream: corn stalks bigger than the car, framing the edges of the road. It must’ve been before her sisters were born, because she remembers sitting alone in the backseat. She has a hazy image of her parents in the front seats; her mother leaning over to change the radio.

<Marco?>

Rachel blinks out of her daze. From the driver’s seat, Marco glances in the rear-view mirror, even though it mustn’t do much- there’ s a whole row of seats between Marco and the very back seat where Ax is lying in his natural form.

“Yeah, Ax-man?”

<Do you have a location in mind?>

“Uh,” Marco says. Rachel looks into the rear-view mirror and sees him lick his lips. “A little. I have maps, and a general plan.”

Jake says, “You don’t know where we’re going?”

“Did I not just say I had a plan?”

“A general plan,” Jake says, but Marco’s already waving a hand.

“We saved the world with a few dozen half-baked plans, don’t underestimate half-baked plans. I know where we’re going, it’s gonna be great. But I’m more focused on the road trip to-do list than whether or not we’re gonna swing by Minnesota’s largest ball of twine.”

<Kansas,> Tobias corrects.

Marco rolls his eyes. “Kansas, whatever. How did you even know that?”

Despite herself, Rachel feels a tug at the side of her mouth as she watches him. Out of all of them, she thinks Marco came out of the war with the least amount of scars. She has no doubt he still wakes up in mid-punch or yell, but… he’s more assured, nowadays, and Rachel doesn’t think it’s purely because of the testosterone he’s been taking since the war ended. He’s growing, and not growing inwards or jagged like the rest of them. He’s growing into a person who’s going to look back on these days and see them as a few dark years rather than the beginning of the end.

As for the rest of them- well. Rachel hopes they’re doing better than her. She thinks they probably are. Cassie is, definitely- she comes in a hard second to Marco in terms of how-good-everyone’s-doing. Jake- well, Jake doesn’t know if he’s going to go to prison, so he’s still carrying a familiar weight on his shoulders. Ax seems to be doing okay, from what Rachel’s seen, but he hasn’t jetted back home yet so something must be happening there.

And Tobias-

Rachel clears her throat. “You have a to-do list?”

“Yup.” Marco pops the _p_. “Started thinking about it once everyone started, y’know, actually agreeing to come. I wrote most of it down when we stopped at that gas station before picking up bird-boy and Ax.”

Rachel thinks about saying something like _thanks for consulting us, Marco, did you think to ask if we wanted to do any of what you wrote down_ , but Cassie cuts in with: “Could we see it?”

“Yeah, give me a second.” Marco takes a hand off the wheel to rummage in one of his pockets. Apparently it’s deep in there, because he starts squirming and making awkward movements with his elbow as he digs for it. “Chill,” he tells Jake. “It’s an empty road.”

“You’re going-” Jake glances down to the speedometer. “ _Very_ fast.”

“Still under the speed limit,” Marco says. He makes a triumphant noise as he resurfaces with a scrap of notepaper. He tosses it behind him to Cassie, then replaces his hand on the steering wheel.

Rachel hears him tell Jake _you can relax now, I’m at ten-and-two again_ , as she bends sideways to see the paper Cassie is smoothing out. As soon as Rachel moves, Cassie shifts the paper so she’s holding it closer to her.

Rachel very pointedly doesn’t wonder if it’s out of politeness or if Cassie just doesn’t want to risk touching her. Rachel wouldn’t blame her if it’s the latter. Behind her, she notes movement and assumes Tobias and Ax are leaning over the seats to read with them.

“Your handwriting is shit,” Rachel says as she squints at the paper. It’s titled THE ANIMORPHS TEENAGE TO-DO LIST.

<I thought this was a road-trip to do list,> Tobias says.

“Tomato, tomah-to,” Marco calls back.

Rachel squints some more. Eventually, she deciphers that the paper reads:

 

  * UNDERAGE DRINKING
  * BREAKING INTO A SCHOOL SWIMMING POOL AT NIGHT
  * FIREWORKS ON A BEACH????
  * BEACH AT NIGHT
  * SOMETHING ON A ROOFTOP. PICNIC??? FIREWORKS ON ROOFTOP???
  * GOING CLUBBING



 

“Some of them overlap,” Marco says from the front seat. He’s drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “So we can do a couple at once. Like drinking and clubbing. I figured we could morph into adults- y’know, obviously of age, like 40 or whatever, so we won’t get carded, then de-morph when we get in.”

Rachel thinks about being drunk and in morph and getting stuck as a random 40 year old who would then have a perfect doppelganger. She thinks about looking in the mirror to see that for the rest of her life. Some days she feels like such a stranger in this body that getting stuck as a stranger wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

<I can see eight ways that could go wrong just off the top of my head,> says Tobias.

Rachel pictures him drunk in hawk-form and has to bite back a laugh.

“Since when are you so obsessed with swimming at night,” Jake asks Marco.

“What? There’s just one about that.”

“Beach and pool,” Jake points out.

“Oh.” Marco shifts his shoulders against the car seat. “We don’t have to swim at the beach.”

Cassie leans forwards towards him. “Why at night?”

“Isn’t that what us rowdy teenagers get up to,” Marco says after a few seconds.

<You still watch weird amounts of daytime TV, huh.>

“Shut it, bird-boy.” Marco sighs and it’s hardly a sound. It pulls in through his teeth. “I just- we never got anything like normal life after we put our hands on that blue fucking box. After that everything was panic and fear and pain and, y’know, screaming nightmares. I thought we could do with some R&R that didn’t involve stressing about the apocalypse, okay?”

Silence falls over the car. Rachel watches the landscape outside the window smear into something unrecognizable. If she’d stayed home, she would be buried under a mountain of blankets, sweating and watching re-runs.

Sometimes, more often lately, Rachel tries to imagine what her life would’ve been like if the yeerks never came. She would be- god, she doesn’t know. Maybe she would’ve taken her dad up on that old offer to move with him and become an actual gymnast rather than an amateur. Maybe she’d be thinking about college by now. She’d definitely still be in high school. She’d go shopping on weekends and- going to parties at night, maybe. She’d toy with boys and hang out with Cassie and experiment with clothes, with her hair. She’d never wake up in mid-morph and scare the shit out of her little sisters.

Tobias- she and Tobias would’ve never bonded through battle and terror, but maybe in this world they could’ve been lumped together on a group project or something. They could go to movies and he wouldn’t have to go to the bathroom halfway through to de-morph.

Rachel rests her head against the window and closes her eyes. She doesn’t have scars, but she has the memories of a hundred wounds. This other Rachel, her worst memory of pain would be from breaking her arm at age nine. She would study for assignments and paint her nails without thinking it was pointless. It all feels pointless, imagining what she could’ve been, the teenage experience she could’ve had, the one Marco is trying to scrape together for them: a roadtrip with a bunch of friends, the road out ahead of them. The list would be a bunch of things they’ve done before, things they do just for fun instead of fun-and-a-desperate-attempt-at-a-normal-teenagehood.

 _Fair enough, Marco_. She doesn’t say it. No one does. Eventually Marco turns on the radio and the tinny music of Fleetwood Mac lets Rachel tune out of her thoughts.

 

 

 

 

Something Marco hadn’t factored into this whole road trip thing- or, something he had, but when he pictured it in his mind it was strangely absent- was how much fucking driving he’d have to do. He’d gotten so swept up in the image of them all sitting on a beach, stargazing or whatever, that he’d glossed over how long he’d have to spend in the drivers’ seat.

He looks out into the horizon. There hasn’t been another car in sight for hours.

“Hey,” he says. “Anyone want to take a swing at driving?”

“No,” Jake says instantly, in a tone that suggests that everyone else should follow suit.

Marco looks into the rear-view mirror. Most of the others look just as dubious apart from maybe Rachel, who- okay, no, he doesn’t really want her behind a wheel right now.

“Come on- we won’t get to do this close to civilization, the gap’s closing. Any takers?”

“None of us know how to drive,” Jake says. “Which means you’re going to be the one teaching us, and from what driving skills you’ve shown us so far I’m 100% confident we’d end up in a ditch.”

Marco stares at him. “I’m hurt, Jake. Really hurt. My driving-”

“Watch the _road_ ,” Jake says, eyes glued to it.

Marco rolls his eyes, but does. “Anybody?”

“Maybe in an empty parking lot later,” Cassie suggests. “My parents took me out to do that a few months back.”

<How was that,> Tobias asks.

Cassie shrugs. “I was okay. I dinged the back of the car a bit, though.”

“It happens,” Marco nods. He thinks about telling them how he crashed into his dad’s mailbox on his first try driving up the driveway, then thinks better of it. “So, no one?”

A pause. Then, from the very back: <I would like to try, if everyone’s comfortable with it.>

Marco’s whooping laugh is undercut by everyone else making noises of varying confidence.

“Ax-man, I would be honoured if you’d take the wheel.” Marco starts to pull over, and as he does Jake starts saying, “No, wait- we’re not seriously-”

“He’s gonna morph human first, chill. I wouldn’t just let a guy with four legs and hooves into the drivers’ seat.”

Jake stares at him. “No. _That_ would be _irresponsible_.”

Marco says, “Hey Ax, do they have cars on your planet?”

<Of a sort.>

“Yeah?” Marco settles the car at the side of the road and shuts off the engine. “What do they look like?”

<Better than this,> Ax says, and Marco laughs again.

<Okay, this is happening,> Tobias says, and hops up to the carseat next to Cassie’s head as Ax starts to morph human.

Marco gets out of the car and gets Jake to do the same- “I can’t instruct from the backseat, my man” – and goes to open the door to the backseat. When he does, Ax ‘s eyestalks are schlooping into a head of what is turning rapidly to curly brown hair.

Marco waits, and in seconds Ax blinks up at him in the form that Marco privately calls Other-Ax. He knows it’s just another morph, but to Marco- and everyone else, he thinks, he’s almost certain Ax does too- it feels like another version of Ax.

Ax shuffles out from the backseat. Marco hands hover outwards in preparation, but Ax barely even wobbles as he sets two feet down into the dry grass. He then proceeds not to wobble all the way to the front seat, nodding towards Jake as he passes him.

“Chill,” Marco says as Jake climbs into the backseat where Ax was. “It’ll be turtle-slow.”

“Uh-huh,” Jake replies, but he looks more anxious than grudging, so Marco takes it as a win.

Cassie taps on the window as Marco passes. He stops and waits as she rolls the window down and says, “Turtles are the ones with flippers.”

From beside her, Marco thinks he hears Rachel make a noise that sounds too much like a scoff. He can’t tell if it’s fond or not. Cassie either doesn’t notice or pretends not to.

Marco says. “Slow as tortises, then. Ax, how’re we doing?”

“I am good. Goo-duh,” comes the voice from the front seat. There’s a bleat of the horn and a low “Ahhh.”

Marco snorts as he walks around the car to the passenger’s seat. “Aren’t you supposed to be the tech genius,” he asks as he climbs into the seat and straps his seatbelt on.

“I am,” Ax says distractedly. He’s looking over the car, buttons and levers and all. “This should be easy. These vehicles do not even hover. Ver.”

“Great.” Marco leans back in his seat. “Take us away, then.”

There’s a noise and Marco looks back to see Jake leaning as far forwards as his seatbelt will allow him. “You said-”

“I’m teaching! He’s learning by doing. Ax, you know the basics, yeah? You saw how I-”

Ax twists the key in the ignition and the car rumbles to life.

“There we go,” Marco says. “Okay, now, changing out of neutral-”

Ax has already done it. He looks expectantly at Marco. “Then I push this down, correct,” he says, and puts his hand on the handbrake.

“Uh, yeah. Oh, you gotta push that in as you- yeah,” Marco says. “You got it. Okay, so, pedals-”

The car lurches forwards, then comes to a stop. Everyone jerks against their seatbelts.

Marco clears his throat. “So, maybe someone should grab onto Tobias-”

“Cassie’s already on it,” Rachel says. Marco glances back and sees that Cassie has, in fact, taken Tobias into her arms and is holding him secure against her chest.

“Great. Okay.” Marco turns back. “Ax-”

“I believe I have ‘got this,’” Ax says. The car moves forwards again, more smoothly this time.

Marco sits on his hands so he doesn’t clutch at his seatbelt, but the car rolls back onto the road and stays on the correct side, never drifting over, and the speed stays consistently slow-ish. It feels ludicrously slow after going so fast earlier, but when Marco looks at the speedometer he realizes they’d be breaking the speed limit if they were driving in a city right now.

“Okay,” Marco says, voice light. “Going pretty good, Ax-man.”

“Thank you,” Ax says. His hands are perfectly at ten-and-two. “In my defence, it is remarkably simple. After experiencing technology on my home planet,” he elaborates. “I’m sure for humans this is more difficult, with you-ou being used to such primitive technology. Ology.”

Marco bites his lip against a grin. He’s missed this damn alien and his not-quite-compliments. He’s so earnest about them.

Ax glances around him again and takes a hand off the wheel to touch the long switch that will turn on the windshield wipers. “Oh,” he says when he pushes it hard enough to turn them on to the lowest setting. “I wondered about that.”

He flicks it further and the windshield wipers speed up, screeching quietly against the dry glass.

Marco clears his throat. “Not that I’m not loving the show, but that’s actually bad for the-”

“Sorry,” Ax says, and turns it off.

An anxious silence that Marco thinks is only anxious for some of them, falls. Road trips, apparently, are full of silences that have raging levels of comfortable.

About a minute into Ax driving- Marco is pretty sure Ax already better than him, but they’re so driving along a straight country road so that’s pretty easy anyway- Tobias says, <Ax?>

“Yyyes.”

<Would alcohol affect you? Or do we need to feed you chocolate to get you drunk?>

Marco grins. Spock reference. Nice.

“Alcohol would affect me,” Ax replies. “Though we have different kinds on my planet.”

<Yeah? What kinds?>

Ax pauses. “The most popular kind that is drunk on my planet- among polite society, at least- is, I think, close to what is called ‘tequila’ on Earth.”

Rachel says “Oh god,” just as Cassie says, “Ah.” In the very back seat, Jake just makes a noise that is too breathy to be a laugh.

<Polite society, huh,> Tobias says.

“Yes.”

Marco grins at the road. “What do people from unpolite society drink, then?”

“It is unlike any alcohol you would recognize,” Ax says. “It is also in solid form.”

Marco nods, still grinning. “So you guys- you just walk over pools of stuff- depending on if you’re well off or not- and get wasted?”

“Does ‘wasted’ mean intoxicated?”

“Yeah.”

“Then yes.”

Marco imagines it- andalites traipsing through a pool of amber liquid, movements gradually becoming more and more sloppy. “That is the best thing I’ve ever heard. Tobias, you are a god for bringing that up.”

<You’re welcome.>

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ax finds he quite likes driving. It’s oddly soothing, despite the knowledge that the contraption he’s in control of is laughably primitive and they would most likely die if he crashed right now.

Car crashes kill an astounding amount of people on Earth. Ax remember reading that and pitying them for being so early in their technology. This was back when he still pitied them, or back when he didn’t feel guilty about pitying them. Nowadays he knows that even though humans are early in terms of technology, they are developing it very fast and even if they weren’t, they are surprisingly resilient.

Pride is the main emotion Ax feels for humanity as a species. There’s still a thread of pity, and some disgust and anger when he turns on the news, but it’s to be expected- in his hearts, he feels the same emotions for different reasons about his own people. Not that he would ever speak of it.

Sometimes, though more since Earth is safe, Ax will sit somewhere- a rooftop, a bus stop bench- and look out over this place these humans have made. It is not particularly stupendous, but Ax will become awash with emotion all the same, a slow thing that builds and crests. He will eye a flower poking from a crack in the sidewalk, peeling posters on billboards, a woman speaking into a large cellphone, and he will feel an immense fondness- even if it is sometimes bitter- for this planet and their inhabitants, for this world he helped save.

Still, it is not his world. It is a place he has lived, and still lives, and he feels more strongly for it than he’d ever thought he would when he was in his ship sinking to the bottom of its ocean.

Ax drums his fingers on the steering wheel like he’s seen Marco do, as well as people on TV. He likes the motion, it seems carefree. Ax has seen Marco do this same finger movement on his jeans or on a desk when he’s bored or nervous, but there’s something about the movement on the steering wheel with the windshield overlooking the scenery to the front of the car.

Ax watches the street pass underneath them. Up ahead there is the horizon and the sky. The moon is visible, which it sometimes is during the day- this had surprised him at first. It still unnerves him, even years later. So does the sun, in a more distant way: there’s a single sun instead of the two on Ax’s home planet, and it’s duller than either of them.

Everything on Ax’s planet had been in a near-constant state of brightness. The plants, the structures, the mountains had all glowed with the light cast on them. The closest thing Earth has to that occur in the hot depths of its summers, which still pale in comparison. Winter had been a shock, to say the least- all dull tones and muted colours, the grey sludge of sleet and rain. Autumn had been… colourful, at least, but rarely bright. Ax looks forward to summer every year.

Ax glances beside him. Marco is leaning back into the seat with his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes closed. His eyelashes are a dark sweep against his cheeks and Ax finds himself looking at them for longer than he means to. As he tears his gaze away, he notices that the hair on Marco’s chin has darkened.

Ax feels himself smile, which is always something to get used to- his mouth is odd to operate at will, let alone against it. Marco had sounded so happy when he’d described what would change once he started testosterone, and Ax is happy in turn to see the effects on him. He hopes Marco feels ‘right,’ as he had said back then, just after the war ended.

He looks into the rear-view mirror. Behind him is the rest of his team, the human children who banded together and managed to hold off the yeerks for years. He remembers thinking it was impossible, when they had introduced themselves and their cause to him. He remembers thinking this many times after, and then doing his best to block the thought out.

Ax looks at them. Cassie is reading something from what she called the ‘glove compartment,’ he thinks it’s a pamphlet. Rachel is leaning against the window with her eyes closed, her fingers knotted together in her lap. Tobias is perched atop the carseat next to her, a careful distance away, and in the backseat Jake is staring out the window at nothing in particular.

There is a word for it on Ax’s world, which hard to pronounce with teeth and tongue, that describes the state that follows survival mode; when you can finally let yourself relax and you fall apart as a consequence after so long of focusing on survival.

For a while, Ax had not been very distraught about the idea of losing Earth. He would not have missed its towering cities, the denseness of its population shoved into impossibly small cities. He would not miss its lakes or oceans. He might’ve missed its forests. But then the years passed, and Ax caught more glimpses of this world and what it held, and eventually Ax found the idea of losing Earth, the planet, much more distressing than he thought he would.

It had taken him much less time to grow attached to the people in this car- mere weeks had passed before Ax was panicked about the idea of their deaths. His feelings for these humans had grown roots and spread over the years, even as things had started to fall apart. He feels a _kerrashil_ , a battle-bond, with all of them: they have experienced so much together, thrown together by chance. Now they had a chance to separate, and they had. Now that they are together again, Ax knows they won’t stay that way. They will separate again. Still, Ax hopes that they will continue to come together. He hopes, but there is also a word in his language that does not exist here: _kerrashorn_. It meant the separation of those who are battle-bonded after the fight finally ended. Not through circumstance, but by choice: being together is too painful, bringing back memories or tensions that they want to retreat from or forget.

Ax can picture them all, himself included, becoming _kerrashorn_. It might have started already. He wouldn’t blame any of them for it. Still, he hopes-

“It has been a solid hour of Fleetwood fucking Mac.”

In the rear view mirror, Ax’s gaze drags towards Rachel. She’s speaking with her eyes closed. “Change the radio channel,” she says.

Marco grumbles something but does. He also keeps his eyes closed, hand reaching out and groping until he finds the radio. It switches to a singer telling the listener they are an ‘all star.’

“Happy,” Marco says, and then leans back into the chair.

“This is worse,” Rachel tells him.

<I like this song,> Tobias says.

“You have terrible taste,” Rachel says after a beat.

Tobias pauses. <It’s catchy.>

“It’ll be over soon,” Jake says.

Ax watches the road. He knows it’s not possible, but it seems to go on forever.


	4. Chapter 4

The supermarket is mostly empty, which Cassie is thankful for. Not so much for herself, but for Rachel.

Ax and Marco seem okay when they’re out and about, but Tobias is shifty about crowds at the best of times and attracts weird looks from acting too much like a bird when he’s in human morph. And from what she’s seen of Jake in the past day, he hides away in baggy clothes and moves stiffly whenever he thinks people are looking at him. Cassie assumes he’s afraid of getting recognized and having everything dragged out in front of him: _did you really do what they say you did, how do you live with yourself_ and the like, which according to Marco has happened before.

Rachel’s unease comes in fits and bursts: twitching away from another shopper as they pass and checking around her every ten seconds or so like she’s expecting an attack from behind. Other than that, she just hunches into her hoodie.

Cassie takes a second to admire how she’s still able to rock that hoodie even when she’s in the midst of an ongoing psychotic break. Even covered in mud or blood or viscera, Rachel has always been able to look catwalk-worthy. Now, it seems, is no different.

It’s only when Rachel glances at her and it turns into a pinched look that Cassie realizes she had been smiling fondly at her. She forces her mouth into something less imposing and says, “Pringles.”

“Pringles,” Rachel says after a moment, nodding.

They start heading for the junk food aisle and Rachel looks at the list scribbled on the back of her hand. “What the hell does this even say?”

She tilts her hand towards Cassie, who motions for Rachel to stop. When she does, Cassie makes a move to take her hand, but aborts the motion halfway through and pockets her hands instead.

“Corn chips, I think.”

“What flavour?”

Cassie squints. Marco’s handwriting really is atrocious. “Um. That new one- onion something?”

“God.” Rachel drops her hand back to her side. “Marco and his weird chip flavours. Come on.”

They continue towards the junk aisle. Cassie looks down the other aisles as they pass- international cuisine, magazines, tinned foods. Lately she’s been entertaining the idea of future-her going grocery shopping, by herself or with her classmates-turned-friends. It’s a comforting notion, one that Cassie assumes will turn tedious very fast- she remembers having the same idea about doing her own washing when she was younger, weirdly enough. When she’d finally had to do it on her own, it barely took 3 weeks for it to become another boring chore to remember.

Still, Cassie likes the idea of imaging herself in the future. For the last few years she’d been shying away from it, uncertain there would even be a next week let alone a next year, but nowadays she finds herself imagining moving out of home; decorating her first apartment; maybe getting a dog after med school finishes.

“Are those new overalls?”

“Huh?” Cassie blinks and looks down at them. “Oh. Yeah, I grew out of my old ones.”

Rachel makes a noise in the back of her throat. “Finally. I’d been waiting for you to replace that old pair for what, a year? It’d creak at the seams when you moved, it was that small on you.”

Cassie smiles as they turn into the junk aisle. She’s not quite sure what to say- Rachel hasn’t been up for conversation ever since they got in Marco’s van. She’d been silent for most of the trip to get Jake, and today had been more of the same, apart from a few moments.

“Okay,” Rachel says as they come to a stop in front of the rows of chips. “Onion...” she trails off, mumbling the second word as she tries to read it on her hand. “Whatever,” she says, and starts looking over the chips.

Cassie reaches up to get the nearest Pringles. She goes onto her toes, but all she can do is prod at them with the very end of her middle finger.

There’s a sigh and suddenly Rachel is in her space, standing close enough to brush elbows and reaching up to grab the Pringles can with ease. “Here,” she says, still looking at the chips as she hands the can to Cassie.

“Thanks.” Cassie holds the can against her stomach with both hands. She watches as Rachel curses quietly and then grabs the nearest chips she can find that say ‘onion’ in the label, then takes several chocolate bars that are loaded with caramel.

For a second Cassie can almost pretend they’re in middle school again, that this is just before a sleepover, and in an hour they’ll be back at Rachel’s house and her sisters will be microwaving old takeout and Rachel will do Cassie’s nails and pinch her elbow, grinning, when Cassie messes them up by accident in record time.

But then Cassie blinks and Rachel is taller than she ever was in middle school; her baby fat is gone as well as her easy smile. The Rachel that painted Cassie’s nails has slowly but surely been replaced by something whip-thin and dangerous, something you could cut yourself on.

Cassie finds herself swallowing down a reflux of grief for the kid she used to be; her and Rachel both. They were all- _are_ all so young. Cassie forgets this, sometimes, but there are moments where she’ll look in a mirror or see Jake on the TV and think _god, we’re children! We’re still children! How the hell can that be?_

“Cassie?”

“What?” Cassie’s throat clicks. Rachel is looking at her warily.

“I’m fine,” Cassie says. “Let’s-”

There’s a crash off to the left, far away but not far away enough. Cassie’s mind leaps to draccon beams; their sharp, impossible noise, and she acts on instinct: she grabs Rachel’s wrist and drags her away from the shelves into the middle of the aisle, plastering her back against hers so they have a better view of whoever or whatever is- is-

Cassie’s breath is loud in the otherwise silent supermarket. She watches as a bored employee, a teenage girl no older than them, walks by their aisle. She doesn’t look like the store just got broken into, or like anyone’s pulled an alien weapon.

Rachel is a solid pressure against Cassie’s back. She’s also very still.

Cassie turns around. “Sorry. Shit. I- sorry.”

Rachel looks down at her. Her eyebrows are unplucked and lovely and drawn in together. She continues not to say anything until Cassie swears again, and then she says, “Uh, you good?”

“Yeah. Yes.” Cassie pushes a strand of tight curls out of her own face. “I’m good.”

“Okay,” Rachel says, dubious. She’s still holding the chips and chocolate bars; Cassie had dropped her Pringles can at the noise. Cassie watches Rachel bend down and take the can in the hand not holding the chips and chocolate. She hands the can back to Cassie wordlessly.

“Thanks.” Cassie can’t stop swallowing. Her throat is bone dry, despite having taken a long swig from Jake’s water bottle less than an hour ago. “We should, uh. Go to the checkout. Can’t keep everyone waiting for dinner.”

“Right,” Rachel says, and falls into step beside Cassie after a few seconds of walking.

At first Cassie thinks they’re going to drop it, to hide it under a veneer of _we’re fine, we’re roadtripping, we’re normal, ha ha_. Then when they’re walking away from the cashier with their chips, Rachel says, “I thought you were the stable one out of all of us. Well, and Marco, but he was only ever a certain level of stable, anyway.”

“I’m stable,” Cassie says. Even to her, it sounds flimsy.

Rachel doesn’t say anything, and this time she continues not saying it. When they get in the car and Marco jokingly asks if they had any trouble, Cassie eyes her own hands, but Rachel just tells Marco his taste in chips is weird and throws the bag over the carseat at him.

Cassie blows a thin stream of breath out and leans back against the seat. Her heart is still beating like a rabbit’s, and still hasn’t calmed by the time they pull out of the parking lot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tobias has never liked motels. They remind him too much of being shuffled from house to house, never sticking somewhere long. As they draw closer to one, Tobias tries not to think about it.

Beside him, Ax is still sulking. Or, the Ax-version of sulking, which wouldn’t be noticeable to someone who didn’t spend the better part of 3-and-a-half years around him.

<You know why they didn’t get you to go in to the supermarket,> Tobias reminds him.

“That was one instance,” Ax says. He’s morphed to human to gorge himself on chocolate bars, and is currently licking the remnants of one off his fingers.

<Two, come on, buddy. I was there for both of them, don’t lie to me.> When Ax says nothing, Tobias says, <It was a small supermarket anyway, they probably didn’t even have free samples.>

“Oh god, does Ax still get pissed about that,” says Marco from the driver’s seat. He has one hand on the wheel and the other in a bag of chips. Jake’s been eyeing both his hands and holding his own seatbelt with no concern for subtlety.

Tobias says <Yeah,> at the same time Ax says, “I was not angry.”

Marco snorts. “Sure, Ax-man. Tobias, when was this second time? I only remember one.”

<Yeah, the second time happened a couple of months ago. There was a basket of bread bits and our friend here got carried away and started opening the actual bags of bread, y’know, the ones you’re supposed to buy first->

“I am still learning about Earth’s rules. It is an ongoing process, and you all have very different cultures and practices depending on-”

<You’ve stuck pretty exclusively to the Western ‘cultures and ideals,’> Tobias says. <Don’t use that as an excuse.>

Ax stays silent, but that might just be due to his continued sucking of his fingers.

“The _road_ ,” Jake snaps.

“Got it,” Marco says, gaze snapping from the rear-view mirror to the road, where he’s stopped in the middle of it to turn into the motel. He adds, “There are no cars, chill,” as he starts to turn.

Tobias looks towards Ax, who is leaning with the car as it turns and still sucking his fingers. Maybe Tobias will have to tell him not to do things that could distract Marco while he’s driving. Or more likely, he’ll tell Marco to pull his head out of his butt and quit leering at Ax while he’s operating a vehicle with all of them inside it.

Tobias holds harder to the seat with his talons and ruffles his feathers. Definitely the second one, he decides.

“So how many rooms are we getting,” Rachel asks.

“Uhhh.” Marco pauses as he pulls into a park. When the car rumbles into silence and he’s pulling the parking brake back, he says, “I don’t know. However many beds we need and- uh, we can get a bed for Ax and then just put the bedding in a tub. Tobias-”

<I can sleep in a drawer,> Tobias says. He doesn’t look at Rachel when he says it, but he can feel her gaze on his feathers. He wonders if she’s also thinking about the cold winter nights, the storms he’d weathered by coming into Rachel’s room and settling into the open drawer she’d lined with old sleepwear. <Don’t bother getting a bed.>

“Never crossed my mind,” Marco replies. “Uh, how’s about you circle around and when you see us go into a room just come down and peck on the window until one of us comes to let you in, yeah?”

<Sounds good. Let me know.> Tobias waits until Cassie winds down the window, then he hops over to it, perching for a moment before taking flight.

Being in the sky again is a relief after so much time in the van, even if the air feels stale and there’s barely a breath of wind. Tobias flaps lazily upwards, lilting in circles around the tiny town they’ve parked in. He stakes out the place, taking note of good vantage points if a fight breaks out, good spots to take cover.

Just because it was easier, he’d morphed human hours ago to eat what had then been the last of their snacks. Marco had made a joke about letting Tobias know about the next roadkill he spots and no one had laughed, because they all knew Tobias was considering it: it’d be cheaper, for one. Roadkill was usually cold and therefore kind of gross, but Tobias wouldn’t turn up his beak at it. He didn’t like eating in front of people- as a hawk, anyway- but it was a small discomfort rather than something that used to make him take off and have a crisis about it.

As he coasts in slow circles, Tobias thinks about the list- where the hell had Marco gotten half of those ideas? Since when did he have an obsession with the beach? And fireworks? Tobias had sat with Marco sometimes when he watched his endless loop of reruns with Ax, and very few of them had the kind of stuff on that list.

Why did Marco’s automatic idea of teenagehood come up with those things? When Tobias thinks of the teenagehood he wishes he had, the beach doesn’t make an appearance. Drinking does, but only as an experiment- he’d had a lot of options to drink at his aunt and uncles’, if he wanted to sneak some booze, but he never did. Never really wanted to, after seeing what it did to them.

When Tobias thinks of what his teenagehood should’ve been like, he thinks of school, mainly. He used to entertain faint fantasies that involved getting into a low-rate college, and he didn’t care what it was if it was out of town or better yet out of state. He’d apply for loans. He’d do his best and maybe drop out, he wouldn’t be surprised, but he’d try first.

Tobias flies up until the motel would be a speck, if he had human eyes. As it is, he can still see the yellow flash of Rachel’s hair as she walks out onto the second floor balcony that sticks out around the building. Up here, in control and safe, Tobias lets himself feel his chest twist. Rachel goddamn Berenson.

From behind her, Jake emerges through the door, and then the rest of the group, including Ax in human morph. Tobias watches him follow the girls into a motel room and sees Marco and Jake at the next one over.

On the balcony, Marco puts up one hand to shade his eyes. With his other hand, he motions towards Tobias. His mouth moves around what Tobias assumes is a version of _get down here, bird-boy_.

Tobias angles himself downwards and flaps until he’s close enough to come into a soft landing on Marco’s shoulder. The doorway isn’t wide enough for a pigeon’s wingspan, let alone Tobias’.

Marco walks inside and Tobias flaps in short bursts over to a desk that has an old TV sitting on it.

“Nice digs,” Marco says, putting his hands on his hips.

“Are we looking at the same room,” Jake says. “Also, dibs that bed.”

Marco grins at him. “Because I’m a kind and gallant person, I’m going to let you have that.”

“Yeah, ‘cause I dibsed it,” Jake says, sitting down on the bed and bouncing lightly to test its springs.

Tobias eyes him. Jake has been drifting in and out of something distant and tense to something slightly more like how he was in the first couple of years of the war. Have the past few monthshave been good for him? They couldn’t have been great, with the upcoming trial and being kept on a military base, but surely he would’ve gotten a lot of downtime. What does Jake even do with that nowadays?

‘Basketball’ is the first thing that comes to mind. It makes him huff a laugh in thought-speak.

The boys both look up at him.

<It’s nothing,> Tobias tells them. He scratches under his wing with his beak and then something occurs to him. He lowers his wing and looks into the bathroom, where Marco’s pulling at the shower curtain trying to figure out the design.

<Hey, who’s paying for all this?>

“Me,” Marco says. “Kind and gallant, remember?”

<Yeah, yeah,> Tobias says. Marco had paid for gas earlier today, right? And it hadn’t been a small amount. He remembers Cassie offering to chip in, but Marco had waved her off. <Since when do you have money?>

“Since I’ve been going on talk shows,” Marco says distractedly. He squints down at the shower curtain. “What the hell is- clowns? No. Rabbits with weird hats. No-”

<You went on talk shows?>

Marco finally looks up at him. “What? Yeah. Like five months ago, where’ve you- right,” he says, making a face like Tobias has been giving him a flat look. “Woods. Yeah. But you had a TV- Ax had a TV in his scoop.”

<We mostly watched videos.>

“Ah.” Marco looks almost disappointed. “So Ax didn’t-?” He stops and runs a hand through his hair. “Yeah, I went on a couple of talk shows. Or, I did two. I also did an interview that isn’t out yet.”

<What’d you talk about?>

Marco laughs. It’s not a good laugh. “What do you think?”

Fair enough. Still, Tobias suddenly wants to know- what kind of questions did he get asked? How did he respond? There’s so much ground to cover in the war, so much about the animorphs and what they did, why they did it, how they coped. So much about their families, their backgrounds, what they’ll do next- did Marco answer anything he got asked? Surely not. It’s Marco, after all.

<Why’d you agree to do it,> Tobias asks.

Marco doesn’t even blink. “Money, mostly. And publicity. They kind of go hand in hand.”

<You’re going to keep doing stuff like that?>

“Yeah.” He clears his throat. “Actually, I was thinking of getting into showbiz. Should be easy now.”

<Seriously?> He remembers Marco making some jokes about it over the years, but really?

“Why not,” Marco says, and averts his gaze to the wall of the bathroom. “Gotta make a living,” he continues, and turns back to the shower curtain. Either he’s actually interested in finding out what the smudges on it are, or he’s feigning it. With Marco, it could easily be both.

Tobias looks at Jake, who’s been suspiciously silent for this. Jake is leaning back against his bed, palms braced against the mattress. He’s looking out the window.

Tobias switches to private thought-speak. <Have you watched them?>

Jake blinks. <The first one, yeah.>

<What did they ask? What did Marco say?>

<Just- stuff about the war. About the Animorphs. Uh, the host- the talk show host, she put a lot of emphasis on us being kid soldiers. She made us seem sympathetic.> Jake shifts his shoulders and Tobias thinks about the weight on them- has it gone away? Will Jake have to cope with the phantom weight of it for the rest of his life?

Jake continues, <I think Marco’s trying to sway public opinion towards me, for the trial. Like, that’s not the only reason he’s doing- he’s doing it for himself. But I think he’s also trying to help me.>

<Of course he is,> Tobias says. That sounds exactly like Marco.

Jake’s gaze goes faraway. He’s probably watching the near-nonexistant clouds go by.

Tobias looks at him with a precision impossible to humans: stray hairs, loose fibres on his clothes. He can remember very clearly: Jake looking over a video feed at Rachel when they thought she was dead. Blood had been oozing into her eyelashes and her lips had been parted. 

Even after they found out Rachel was alive, Tobias hadn’t looked Jake in the face for a long time after that. They had hardly spoken before this road trip.

From the bathroom, Marco called that he was going to use the shower and anyone else who wanted to use the bathroom had better speak up now.

“We’re good,” Jake calls back. Then he lies on his back against the mattress.

Tobias watches his chest rise and fall for ten seconds. Then he flies over to the bedside table that separates Jake and Marco’s beds. Jake doesn’t acknowledge him and Tobias doesn’t do anything but stand.

The shower turns on and the sound of running water comes muted through the thin walls. Tobias thinks about the wall on the other side of the room, the one with Rachel on the other side. He thinks about the wall with the window in it. He looks towards it, out the glass into the sky.

 

 

 

 

Jake rests his eyes until he’s in real danger of falling asleep. When he opens his eyes, drowsy, the sky has darkened slightly and Marco still isn’t on the bed next to him.

Jake twists his head. The bathroom door is still closed and he hasn’t heard any movement since the water shut off.

“Marco?”

A clatter and a tiny swear. Then: “I was _concentrating_ , dude.”

“Sorry,” Jake says, and listens to another swear. “Need help with something?”

There’s a pause, then a small click and a thud, and the bathroom door leans open slightly.

Jake pushes himself to his feet and walks by Tobias, around Marco’s bed and into the bathroom. It’s very small, the bath is close enough to the door that Marco, who is sitting on the edge of the tub, could’ve leant over and opened the door with one hand and then kicked it open-

 When he registers Marco fully, he stops: Marco is wearing a binder and boxers and his hair is damp, sticking to his face. On the sink there are plastic wrappings and some sterile pads, and in his hand Marco has a very small needle filled with clear liquid.

“Hi,” Marco says dryly.

Jake stares. He closes the bathroom door behind him. “What’s… what’s up, buddy?”

Marco gives him a squinty look. “Shit, I didn’t tell you the specifics of any of this, did I?”

Jake shakes his head. He hadn’t even known Marco was- what did they call it? Transitioning- until he’d shown up at the military base with Rachel. They’d hardly talked since the war ended, and Marco hadn’t mentioned this in the phone calls he tried to make weekly, but usually ended up happening bi-monthly or even monthly.

Marco sighs. “Okay, this?” He holds up the tiny needle. “Testosterone. It’s supposed to go in me, but I can’t- uh, I can’t get the right angle.”

His voice changes slightly at the last minute, though his gaze remains steady. Unlike his hands, which- Jake focuses on them. Marco’s fingers, both on the hand holding the needle and the one around the lip of the tub, have minute tremors running through them.

Marco squeezes the hand he has against the tub hard enough that it’s too tight to shake. He holds out the needle.

“Oh,” Jake says. He takes it gingerly by the non-pointy end. That, at least, he knows. “Uh.”

“I’m gonna talk you through it, calm down.”

“No, I know.” Jake eyes it anyway. “Hey, if I mess this up, what’ll happen?”

“You won’t mess it up.”

“Yeah, but if I do-”

“You won’t,” Marco says. “Besides, I’ve done all the hard stuff, checking for bubbles and whatever, which is a big no-no. You just have to-”

“Stick the needle in you.”

“Chill,” Marco tells him, and pushes one leg of his boxers up a bit so more thigh is exposed. He shows Jake how to hold the needle, then Marco pinches a thick section of his own thigh skin. His hands are still shaking, just barely, when Jake pushes the needle in- all the way in, like Marco tells him to. He slowly injects it and waits several seconds.

“Now take it out,” Marco says.

Jake does, just as slow. He’s not sure if he’s supposed to do it slow. He has a vague memory of getting shots at a nurse’s office when he was a kid, having the needle in his arm and wishing they’d take it out faster.

Marco motions towards the sink. “Hand me one of those swabs. And a band-aids.”

Jake does, even though the bathroom’s small enough and everything is close enough together that Marco could’ve easily leaned over and got one himself.

Jake watches as Marco wipes at the bead of blood with the antiseptic swab, then smooths a band-aid over the spot with unsteady hands.

“Thanks,” Marco says. He smiles up at Jake, who is struck by how tired Marco suddenly looks.

“You okay,” Jake asks.

Marco wiggles his leg. “It’s a jab. It’ll heal. We’ve had way worse.” Then he grins, and it looks just as weary.

 _We’ve had worse_ , Jake thinks. He hasn’t had a limb cut off in months. It’s been years since he’d went more than a few weeks without getting something cut off him, whether it be paws or flippers or otherwise. He has a vivid memory of Marco, early on in the war, getting sliced nearly in half in dolphin morph after they’d just met Ax for the first time.

God. It feels like so long ago. Where the hell would any of them be in three years? Maybe Jake would be in prison. How long would they keep him there, anyway? He feels like what he did- it’s well worth a life sentence. He still thinks it’s necessary, but he wouldn’t blame the jury if they put him away for it. Once upon a time, he’d probably think it was the right thing to do.

Nowadays, he doesn’t get that luxury. One of the younger people back at the base had asked him in the first few days of his stay that if he got to do it over again, would he make the same choice? Jake had replied without thinking _: Yes. I would._ They’d looked at him with something that wasn’t quite horror, but there was some pity mixed in, too.

“We’ve had worse,” Jake agrees when he realizes seconds have passed with neither of them speaking. When he looks at Marco again, the grin has dimmed.

“Whatever it is,” Marco says, “Think about something else instead.”

Jake glances down at Marco’s hands. They’re still, but as Jake watches, they twitch into a tremor. When Marco’s hands curl into steady fists, Jake stands.

His throat clicks. “What time should we leave tomorrow?”

Marco considers, then says, “Before noon. But not too much before- we should have breakfast in town first, at a diner or something, I’ve always wanted to do that during a road trip. Y’know?”

 “Yeah,” Jake says. He stands back and waits for Marco to stand, and leaves into the other room while Marco is still pulling on his bedclothes.

Tobias says nothing as Jake passes him. He probably heard the whole thing.

Jake lies down on top of his bed covers and wonders if he has anything solid that he’s ‘always wanted to do’ that he’d still do now, like Marco has. He’s had vague ideas in the past, but they feel like a child’s dreams- basketball seems laughable now. But there were the usual expectations he found himself hoping for, even looking forward to, as a kid looked forward to something that seemed so long away it would never arrive- college, maybe. A job, a wife, a family- one day, far off. They feel impossibly out of reach now, even more than they did when he was 13 and prepubescent.

He closes his eyes. What would he do once the trial was over? What kind of life could he possibly work towards?

He thinks about Rachel, when he thought he’d sent her to her death, how vacant her face had looked on the screen. He thinks about Cassie and their one kiss, back when they were still growing into the body puberty had given them.

He thinks about Marco on his talk show, smiling wide and laughing like he belonged there, witty and biting and putting on just enough of a show. Tobias, looking at him after Rachel ‘died.’

Tom-

Jake squeezes his eyelids shut tighter. Not that, he tells himself.

Beside him, the other bed creaks with weight. Marco, Jake thinks, remembering: _think of something else._

So Jake tries thinking of smaller things. Marco has this road trip. What does Jake want to do? No, still too big. He has two-ish years left of teenagehood, what does he want to make of them?

 _Well, I don’t want to spend them in prison_ is his first thought. Okay, assume he doesn’t go to prison, what then? His parents- they said they’d have them living with him when he gets out. They were very careful to say _when_. And before Jake had been taken to the military base, they’d had a week or so living in a distant relative’s house. They’d acted a lot like ghosts and it seemed to hurt them to talk to Jake or even look at him sometimes- Jake doesn’t want that to be his life.

Okay. So, he doesn’t want to live with his parents. He could get his own place. Moving out is an important stage of the teenage experience. The late teenage experience, but still. He’d need income, so- he could get a job. But then people would recognize him- maybe something where he doesn’t have to interact with people. Or- just see people, maybe he could get a phone job?

The idea depresses him even as he starts to entertain it.

 _Maybe Marco will let me live in his basement_ , Jake thinks. His mouth twitches.

 _Just get through the road trip_ , he tells himself. _Then the trial, and then- then depending on how that goes, then start to deal with the rest of your life_.

It sounds simple. Jake knows it won’t be. But he’s been operating on plans that have turned into make-it-up-as-you-go for three years now, and those had much higher stakes.

 

 

 

 

Halfway through her shower, Rachel realizes that she should probably wash her hair.

She lifts a wet strand from her shoulder after she finishes lathering-rinsing-and-repeating. She should probably get it cut, too. It’s been filled with split ends since…

She thinks about it. Months before the war ended, definitely. By then she had been past caring about things like hair care. Past caring about a lot of things, actually.

She twists both the knobs to the shower off- because this is one of those weird ones which have two taps instead of one, so adjusting the temperature is a struggle- and steps out of the bath. Because this is a bath-shower hybrid, which makes the showering experience worse all around.

She dries off and starts getting into her PJs. As she buttons up her flannel top, she pauses and brushes her fingers against the space between her breasts, then her collarbone: the controller in polar-bear morph had left scars; ribbed ones from the bottom of her neck to just below where her breasts smooth into stomach.

There had been scars from before the war that never went away no matter how much she morphed, but she’d never got any scars in human form that stuck until these very last ones.

The mirror is foggy and she keeps it that way. She doesn’t want to see them, she’s already got them memorized. Anyway, she could look down any time of the day and see them sitting under her clothes. They’re still slightly pink; healed but not faded by any means.

Her fingertips press into it, then her whole hand. The scars sit thick and rough against her palm.

_You fight well, human._

Rachel closes her eyes and breathes in. Under her hand, her chest expands outwards.

There’s a knock on the door that jolts her eyes open. “What?”

Cassie’s voice comes through. “Ax wants to know if you want something from the vending machine.”

“We already ate.”

“I know, he’s snacky.”

Rachel mouths _snacky_ and bends down to get her towel. She twists it around her hair and props it on top of her head. “Uh. Rasinettes.”

There’s a pause. “You hate Rasinettes.”

Does she? Rachel knows she used to hate them, but she’s developed a taste for them in the past year or so. She and Cassie were definitely still talking regularly when Rachel started liking Rasinettes. Rachel assumes that she’d realized she liked them and then didn’t think about telling anyone- why did Rachel’s changed candy preference matter when they were in the middle of a galactic war?

“Well, I don’t anymore,” she says, heading to the bathroom door and opening it. “They’re an acquired taste, apparently.”

Cassie waves her hand at the volume of steam that wafts out of the bathroom. She steps back and says to Ax, “Um, Raisinettes.”

Still in human morph, Ax nods. “Yesss. So Funyons and Rasin-inettes and-”

“Whatever you can get your hands on for the couple of bucks left over,” Cassie nods.

Ax leaves and Rachel watches his legs as he closes the front door behind him. “How does he not fall over more when he’s human?”

“He falls over less,” Cassie says. She goes over to sit on her bed, then bends down and starts pulling books out of her bag. Then she settles to sit against the wall and opens one.

Rachel sits on her own bed in the same position. She looks over and tries to squint at the titles of the books, which look too thick to be for fun. They also look a lot like textbooks, with long, complicated looking titles.

“Are you back in school?”

“Not yet,” comes Cassie’s answer. It starts out quiet, like she’s not sure if she’s allowed to say it, but finishes with force.

Rachel nods. From Cassie’s face- her gaze is still on the book but her eyes aren’t moving over the words- she isn’t sure if she should continue. Rachel doesn’t know if she wants her to.

They sit in silence that could be a distant cousin of comfortable until Ax returns, wobbling a bit as he closes the door behind him. They both watch him as he rights himself and comes over to hand them their candy.

“What’d you get,” Rachel asks as he heads to sit on his own bed. She doesn’t recognize the brands of the two small chip bags he’s carrying in his arms.

Ax reads them out and then shows them both to her when she just stares at him.

“Marco recommended them to me earlier,” Ax says, ripping into the first one.

Rachel snorts and opens her Rasinettes. “You two belong together.”

Ax makes this weird little head twitch that Rachel knows means he’s forgotten he doesn’t have eye stalks right now, but otherwise he doesn’t deviate from demolishing the first bag of chips.

Rachel eats her Rasinettes and watches him out of the corner of her eye. It seemed to make sense in some grade-school way that the girls and guys would get separate rooms, but for some reason Ax had volunteered to room with the girls instead. Which is weird, because Ax hasn’t talked to Rachel or Cassie for months and things had been rocky between them for a while before that. Then again, things had been rocky between a lot of them near the end of the war.

Rachel pops another Rasinette into her mouth. She chews and remembers asking to kill Ax after he revealed about making secret transmissions to the Andalities. And Cassie- she’s tried to punch her when she’d told them she let Tom take the blue box. She would’ve done it, too, if she hadn’t been held back.

Rachel shifts up on the bed so her back is pressed straight up against the wall. There wasn’t any Animorph she could’ve roomed with that didn’t have some serious shit with her, she supposes. Jake had the whole Tom thing, Tobias had the whole- the whole Tobias-and-Rachel thing.

Maybe Marco. The thought is so ridiculous it makes her smile against the next Rasinette she slots into her mouth: who would have thought that the person she’d have the least beef with out of everyone would ever be Marco?

There’s a ripping noise and Rachel looks over at Ax again. He’s started in on the second bag. Crumbs are pinpricked into the lower half of his face.

Rachel wrinkles her nose. She’d given Ax some appreciative glances over the years- the guy made for one hot mix of the six of them- but watching him eat had always been an exercise in being grossed out or incredulous.

“I’ve never been so attracted to you, Ax,” she says. She doesn’t know why she says it, and it makes Ax look up at her with such genuine confusion and a little suspicion that she laughs.

That makes Ax’s expression clear. “Eating does not look attractive for most people,” he says. “Most humans look unappealing when they eat. Mouths are inherently gross in their core function.”

With that, he dives back into his chip bag. Rachel puts down her Rasinettes and watches until Ax tears the bag apart and starts licking chip powder off the shiny plastic.

Rachel watches his tongue flash over the silver. It’s a very pink tongue, which gets Rachel several thoughts over to something she’d never asked. “Hey, Ax.”

“Yes,” Ax says between licks.

“I’m gonna ask you a personal question. Or, an andalite question.”

Ax pauses. “Continue.”

“How do you guys fuck?”

From behind Rachel, Cassie lets out a hacking laugh that turns more hack than laugh when she starts making choking noises. When Rachel turns to check on her, Cassie is thumping herself on the chest and her eye are watering.

“I’m fine,” Cassie rasps. “Oh god. _Rachel_.”

“I always wanted to know,” Rachel says. She turns back to Ax, who is flushing but otherwise doing a great impression of looking unbothered. “So is it like horses, or-”

Cassie sticks her fingers in her ears. “La, la, la, la, don’t make me think about my alien friend having sex like a horse, laaaaa-”

“Don’t be such a baby,” Rachel tells her. “Ax? Don’t tell me this is another species secret, everyone can assume you guys procreate somehow. Or do you guys have this super-advanced process where you-”

Ax’s watch begins to beep and they all look down at it. It’s the 15-minute mark before his 2 hours of morph is up.

“You’re not getting off that easy,” Rachel tells him when he climbs off the bed and begins to demorph.

Cassie sniggers and Rachel turns to give her a questioning look before she realizes. Right. ‘Get off.’ Ha.

“Dirty mind,” Rachel says.

“Says you,” Cassie replies. She looks guilty, but the kind of guilty that is undercut with wanting to know.

Rachel turns back just in time to see Ax’s eye-stalks schloop out of his head. “Okay, we’re all back now. So: andalite sex.”

Ax sighs in thought-speak. <I regret choosing to sleep in this room.>

 _Yeah, why did you_ do _that?_ “Quit avoiding the subject! I can give you the low-down on how humans get it on-”

<I am aware how humans ‘get it on.’>

That’s news to her. “Yeah?”

<Yes.>

“Okay,” says Rachel expectantly.

 <Why do you wish to know?>

“Because I’ve been around you for four years now and I never knew and now I really want to know.”

Ax pauses. <That is… fair,> he says, sounding almost pained. He scuffs a hoof against the carpet. <Andalites have sex in a more or less identical way to humans.>

Rachel frowns. “Right, I mean- like, I assumed you guys have genitals. That fur has to be hiding something,” she says, gesturing towards the fur that starts out thin and gets thicker in a particular area. “I meant- like, what position. Because I’d assume, y’know- horses.”

She makes a crude hand gesture that Ax looks unimpressed by.

<Obviously there is not just one position. Humans have many, uh- positions. So do andalites.>

Rachel tries to imagine missionary sex between two andalites and has to struggle against a laugh. She looks behind her to see Cassie very wide-eyed and twitchy-mouthed. She meets Rachel’s gaze with a pointed look that seemed to mean _look what you’ve got us into, I told you I didn’t want to imagine andalite sex_.

“Okay,” Rachel says, when too much time has passed and no one’s said anything. “Well. Now I know.”

She leans back against the wall again, but thoughts hit her and keep coming. “Hey, Ax.”

Ax is still standing still near his bed, clenching and unclenching his many-fingered hands. <Mm?>

“Are your genitals different to human genitals? Like, not _yours_ , just andalites in general.”

All four of Ax’s eyes twitch. At first Rachel thinks he’s not going to respond, but then he says, <Slightly.>

“How slightly?”

<I am-> Ax’s hoof scuffs the carpet again, over and over before stopping. <I am not comfortable discussing that.>

“What? Come on!”

Ax narrows his eye stalks at her. <Why don’t you tell me the specificities of _your_ genitals, Rachel, > he asks scathingly.

Cassie lets out a laugh loud enough that Rachel expects Marco to bang on the wall. In turn, Rachel starts snickering uncontrollably until both girls are bent over double, clutching their stomachs and trading looks.

About twenty seconds into the laughter, Rachel’s stomach starts to hurt. She can’t remember the last time she laughed this hard. She can’t remember the last time she hurt for a good reason- an ice cream brain freeze, or whatever. Pain has been frequent and blinding for so long.

Laughing until her stomach hurts feels otherworldly.

“Sorry,” Rachel gasps when she can draw enough breath. “That was- awesome, Ax. _Touche_.”

Ax is still watching her warily, but the embarrassment is mostly gone. His hoof continues to worry the carpet, but in such small movements it’s almost nothing.

Rachel leans back against the wall again. “Sorry,” she repeats.

From beside her, Cassie asks, “Ax? Does the Talk exist on your planet?”

<The Talk?>

“Where your parents sit you down and tell you about the bird and the b- uh, sex. About sex.”

Ax tilts his head. <We learn about in schools, mostly.>

“That sounds much more reliable,” Cassie nods.

Ax nods back. He crosses his arms over his chest. <If the bath is now dry enough, I will start to move my->

“Give it another hour,” Rachel says. “I kinda steamed up the place.”

Ax nods again and looks around like he’s desperately trying to find something to do. Eventually he sits down on the floor.

“Ax?”

Just his eyestalks turn up towards Cassie. His face remains turned towards the window.

Rachel turns to her as well, just in time for Cassie to ask, “Do you get to talk to them much now? Your parents?”

<Sometimes,> Ax says after a second.

Rachel watches Cassie’s thumb stroke the edge of the book she’s holding. It looks new and thick and the font is very small for that number of pages. There’s a diagram of something, but Rachel can’t see what it is from here.

Cassie continues, “Do you think you’ll visit soon? Or…” She trails off.

Ax’s eyestalks turn to the floor. He’s silent for a good few seconds, then he says, <We have not discussed it.>

“Oh,” Cassie says. “Okay.”

Rachel looks at Ax. Why doesn’t he go back? Why hasn’t he already gone? 

She asks, “Is there some diplomatic stuff stopping you from going back,” and Ax’s eyestalks turn to her.

<No, I can return home at any time. I-> He stops.

When Rachel sees he isn’t going to continue, she tries again. “Why don’t you, then?” She doesn’t say it maliciously, she hopes. Just- plainly. She’d never been one to skirt around the hard truths anyway.

Ax tilts his head again. <I’m not entirely sure,> he says. Then: <Well,> in the tone that suggests that isn’t entirely true. Then he trails off again.

Cassie says, “We like having you around, while you’re here.”

She looks at Rachel until she gets it and says, “Uh-huh.” It’s probably not the confirmation Cassie hoped for.

Rachel turns back to Ax and wonders if she would’ve actually gone through with killing him when she thought he’d betrayed them. She hopes she wouldn’t have. She really hopes so.

The rest of the night is largely quiet, but when Rachel is brushing her teeth before bed and Ax is already in the tub, curled in amongst the bed covers he’d dragged into it, Rachel said, “Ax?”

<Please do not ask me any more questions about the specificities of andalite fornication.>

“Nah, I’m all tapped out on andalite loving,” Rachel assures him. She leans back against the sink, still pushing her toothbrush around her gums. She takes it out long enough to ask, “How do andalites kiss? Is there an andalite version of kissing?”

Ax hums in her head. <I suppose the closest thing we have to it is called _lynthin_. >

“You’re gonna have to explain that one.” Rachel turns and spits toothpaste foam into the sink, then starts rinsing out her mouth.

<It is when we stroke our palms against the side of each other’s faces,> Ax tells her.

Rachel straightens, wipes her mouth and puts her toothbrush onto the sink. “Yeah?”

<That is the closest we have to kissing.>

“So it’s romantic? Sexual?”

<It can be either, or both. It can also be familial. It depends on many things.>

Rachel thinks about kissing- tongues, teeth, chaste pecks, lip-biting. What would one finger out of place, or a change of pressure, mean to an andalite kiss?

“Good to know,” Rachel says. Then she turns and sees Ax looking at her strangely. When it clicks, she grins. “I’m not going to make a move on you, Ax. I just wanted to know. I thought it was weird that we’ve known each other for so long and we don’t know all this about your species. Like, fundamental stuff, stuff you’d know, ‘cause apparently you slept through all your culture and history classes.”

<I was an adept student.>

“So was I, once,” Rachel says. “Doesn’t mean I didn’t catch a nap in first period enough to get detention.”

She tells him goodnight and heads back into the main room. Cassie has a lamp on and is still making her way through that big book of hers.

Rachel climbs into bed and thinks about asking Cassie what the book is about. It looked like something medical. Cassie wanted to be a vet someday, right? Maybe she’s looking into it.

The idea fills Rachel with a twisted sense of pride. She wonders why it’s twisted, and then whether she’ll ever be able to feel anything about any of her friends again without having it being followed by something fucked up.

She breathes out hard through her nose. It’s pride, which is what matters. She’s proud of Cassie for not letting the war consume her. Even with her freak-out at the supermarket, Cassie is still one of the best off out of them all. She’s getting up, dusting herself off, getting all that blood off her - she’s moving on. She’s doing something with her life, going forwards instead of lingering back with the rest of the ghosts.

 _You can do that, too,_ Rachel tells herself. It sounds weak, even to her. Still, she tries again: _you have so much life left to get your shit together._

It’s supposed to sound hopeful. Instead it sounds daunting. Rachel reaches up under her sleep top and presses her hand to her scars; digs her nails in so it hurts.

_You fight well, human._

_Shut up_. She breathes in, out, and feels her chest rise and fall. Eventually she finds herself drifting off to sleep, and with her last few seconds of consciousness she remembers she didn’t get around to asking Cassie about her book.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter came pretty fast after the last one! Am I inconsistent or what- first you wait 2 years for a chapter and then you get 2 chapters in as many weeks. Sorry, my dudes! 
> 
> Next chapter will be either weeks or months away, depending on circumstances, and it's going to be a lot longer than I originally anticipated. These kids still have a while to go.


	5. Chapter 5

Marco’s nightmares aren’t all that bad. Not tonight, anyway, but that doesn’t stop his nerves from going haywire when a hand touches his shoulder; soft and then clasping.

Adrenaline lights his way into alertness and Marco’s already twisting, fist coming out in an automatic flail to smack against something solid that makes a shocked grunt and recoils with the impact.

All of this happens before Marco’s eyes are fully open. He struggles into a sitting position, eyes casting around to see what he’s punched- where is he? A motel, he’s stayed at too many since the war ended, there’s- Tobias perched on a desk, why is Tobias here-

Jake is on the floor, looking more dazed than pained, though there is a good dose of that. His hand is raised to his face, not quite touching, and his left eye is squeezed shut. The right one is aimed up at Marco, waiting.

“Shit,” Marco hears himself say. He reaches for Jake, then stops and puts his feet on the floor. “Fuck, sorry-”

“It happens,” Jake says. He lets Marco help him up and then eyes him with his good eye. “You good?”

“Always,” Marco says.

“I said your name a few times but you weren’t waking up, so-”

“It’s fine.” Marco flashes him with his best not-quite-smile and tries for casual, leaning over to get his watch from the bedside table. It’s next to Tobias, who shuffles over to give Marco room to grab it. Marco checks the time- just past 10am.

“Is anyone else up?”

<We haven’t checked,> Tobias says.

“Well,” Marco says, strapping his watch on. “Let’s do that.”

Jake opens his mouth just in time for Marco to continue, “Obviously I’m getting dressed first, shut up,” and heads over to the duffel bag that has stayed where it is after Marco dumped it on the floor five seconds after walking into the room yesterday.

He pulls on a t-shirt and a tight pair of sweatpants- he might need to buy new ones soon, why hasn’t he already, it’s not like he doesn’t have the money anymore- and grabs his wallet before turning back to Jake and Tobias, who is in the middle of morphing human.

Marco sets his watch, waits until Tobias is pretty much human and then follows Jake out the door. Tobias follows at Marco’s side as they step out onto the balcony.

Old habits, Marco thinks. They’re following their fearless leader even now.

He glances sideways at Tobias: he looks older since the last time Marco saw him in human morph. His face is more defined and Marco can’t decide if he looks good or weird. He’s definitely taller, which- okay, Marco’s a little pissed that he’s finally getting taller and he’s _still_ the shortest one in the group. Everyone should stop fucking growing already and let Marco catch up.

 A couple of seconds after Jake knocks on the door, it opens. Rachel squints out into the morning light. She’s wearing PJs and the curtain to their room is still drawn.

“I take it you guys aren’t up yet,” Marco says from beside Jake.

Rachel flips him off as her jaw cracks in a yawn. “Cassie’s up,” she says on the tail end of it. “And Ax is in the bathroom doing his morning ritual.”

Marco frowns. There’s water in there, sure, but no grass or a window to look out into the sun. He knows Ax will make the most of what he’s got, but he also knows that Ax gets twitchy if he doesn’t do it properly.

“So we’re waiting on you,” Marco says.

She leans on the doorframe. “Since when is it urgent to get back on the road?”

“It’s not,” Marco says. “But I want to have breakfast in a diner. I saw one on the way here, it’s about five minutes from here on foot.”

Rachel yawns again. “I’ll throw something on,” she says, and shuts the door in their faces.

Marco goes to lean on the balcony railing. The sun is already high in the sky. They’re in the warm months now, heading for the uncomfortably hot ones, but for now it’s perfect weather to wear a t-shirt and not sweat through it in ten minutes after stepping outside.

It doesn’t take long for the door to open a second time. It’s Rachel again, this time in a new shirt than yesterday, and a skirt with thin tights. She’s holding a hoodie. It’s not her best outfit, but they’re probably the nicest clothes she’s worn since Marco’s dragged her along on this road trip.

Cassie and Ax emerge with her, Ax in human morph and looking excited, as always, at the possibility of tasting food.

“What happened to your face,” is the first thing Cassie says upon seeing them.

Jake reaches up and touches the edge of what is rapidly turning into a bruise. “It’s nothing.”

“He got on my bad side,” Marco says. Then, when Cassie gives him an expectant look: “He caught me by surprise and I decked him on accident.”

Her face goes from expectant to gravely understanding, and Marco turns towards the street to have an excuse to look away from her. “So, breakfast.”

A bit ahead of him, already heading for the stairs that will lead them to the asphalt parking lot, Rachel is pulling on her hoodie.

“Let’s do it,” she says, and it’s so casual and lacking her usual battle-blaze that Marco feels almost bitter about it. Then he follows Rachel down the stairs and the six of them start walking in a group towards the diner Marco points them towards.

The walk is mostly silent, a worn silence if not a comfortable one. It’s a short walk, but Marco is glad for the usual noises of the diner- spoons clinking, waitresses offering coffee, cooks calling that orders are ready. It doesn’t look much like the scene he’d had in his mind, but he’s hardly doing this to make it match up with the hazy, unrealistic images he’s stolen from TV and god knows where else.

He strides up to the counter. “Garçon, your finest table, please!”

The waitress looks at him, unimpressed, but he spots a tiny tug at the side of her mouth. “You can just sit down, there are menus on the tables. I’ll be with you in a second.”

She doesn’t seem to recognize him, which is good. Marco has mixed feelings about getting recognized in public when he isn’t prepared for it.

The Animorphs squeeze into a booth in the corner of the diner. They all gravitate towards it, and as Marco sits down he notes that from here they can see the whole place. He picks up his menu and pretends not to notice when everyone does a quick sweep of the diner.

“I’m thinking pancakes,” he says. “Can’t beat pancakes for breakfast.”

Cassie shakes her head. “Waffles, though.”

“Good point.” Marco looks over the rest of the options. There aren’t many, and there’s maybe one healthy option, which is a fruit salad. There’s no way Marco is paying for a fruit salad unless it has something made out of batter underneath it.

Ax asks, “Do you think they will allow me to have a glass of vinegar? Vin-e-garrr. These establishments usually do not let me.”

“’Cause they don’t serve it, my man. They use it in food, they don’t pour it in glasses and give it to customers,” Marco says. When the waitress from before comes up to their table, he puts the menu down and beams at her.

She beams back with the practiced ease of someone who has to smile for a living. “Can I get anyone coffee? Any drinks?”

She gets a series of _no thanks_ ’s, apart from Jake, who orders a water.

Ax puts his menu down and looks at her, considering.

Marco sighs internally at himself as he turns back to the waitress. He looks at her nametag. “Uh, weird question, Maureen, but could you get us some vinegar?”

She blinks at him. “Vinegar? For… dipping?”

“Sure.” Marco grins. “As a side or whatever. A big side.” He turns enough to wink at Ax, who winks back badly. Both his eyes close in the attempt. Marco appreciates it anyway.

“Okey-dokes,” Maureen says, scribbling it down. “Okay, well, I can take your guys’s orders right now if you’d like, but if you’re not ready I can come back.”

Marco hands her his menu. “I’ll grab the Waffle Extreme, extra berries and cream, thanks Maureen.” He pauses. “Wow, that rhymed 3 times over, I’m on _fire_ today.”

She gives him a smile in return that looks more genuine than the last one. “Great. Anyone else?”

Ax jumps in after that, asking for the all-day-bacon-meal, which apparently comes with a load of other stuff Marco is sure Ax will happily wolf down as everyone tries not to watch him.

Haltingly, orders are given from around the table: Jake gets the hash browns and sausages; Cassie gets scrambled eggs; Rachel and Tobias get eggs on toast with every topping available.

Marco leans back against the booth and props his hands behind his head. In doing so he nearly clips Jake and Rachel, who are sitting on either side of him, so he reigns in his elbows a bit.

“I think the couple over there knows who we are,” Cassie says.

Marco looks at her, then over in the direction Cassie nods towards. There’s a couple sitting near the front of the diner, mid-thirties and holding hands. Their heads are bent together in hushed conversation and every once in a while they’ll glance over at their table.

Beside Marco, Rachel makes a noise in her throat. It sounds weirdly like a grizzly bear.

“Chill,” he tells her, ignoring the death stare he gets in return. “So what, they probably recognize us. We’ve been all over the news for months, I’m surprised more people haven’t recognized us.”

The guy at the last gas station had asked him if he were Marco, _the_ Marco, one of those kids who fought the war. Marco had wondered if he should lie, but then he grinned and said _yep, I’m_ the _Marco_ , and started to walk off with his snacks and recipient. He thinks the guy got majorly caught off guard, because he didn’t manage anything until Marco was walking through the sliding doors. The guy had blurted, _thanks for saving the world!_

Marco had waved and made his way to the car as quick as he could. Thanks for saving the world: it was something a lot of people had said to him lately. It was one of the last things the two talk hosts had said when he went on their shows, though they both worded it better.

“Should we be worried,” Tobias asks.

“Why,” Marco says. Then he sends the usual smile towards Maureen as she comes over with a white bowl full of vinegar, setting it in front of him. “Thanks, Maureen.”

“You’re very welcome,” she says, and walks off to the next table.

Marco pushes the bowl over to Ax, who accept it gratefully and brings the bowl up to his mouth. Marco watches him slurp vinegar with unabashed enthusiasm and bites back a smile. What a dork.

Across the diner, the woman in the couple has taken to pointing at them even though both of them seem to have picked up on the fact that they’ve been noticed.

The atmosphere at the table has grown distinctly tenser. Not fight-tense, but uncomfortable, don’t-want-to-be-here tense, which is not the Diner-During-A-Road-Trip Experience Marco is going to settle for.

His waffles aren’t going to be ready for a while anyway. Marco gets up and starts squeezing his way past Rachel, who gets up after him.

“We’re not going to beat them up,” he tells her.

She shrugs. She doesn’t look convinced by that, or bothered by the idea of beating up strangers in a diner.

Tobias says, “Wait, what’s happening?”

“I’m improving our diner experience,” Marco tells them, and starts over to the couple, who quickly hush up and look down at their half-finished meals when he approaches with Rachel. “Hi, guys! Can’t help but notice you staring at us and pointing.”

After a few seconds of silence and some traded looks, the man in the couple speaks. “Uhhh. Sorry about that.”

Marco nods. “Great. Mind if you stop doing that? We’re trying to enjoy our breakfast and it gets a lot harder with you two over here going _oh my god, is that them, that Marco guy is so handsome, I can’t believe we get to see them with our own eyes_. So, just to confirm: yeah, it’s us. Could you get over it now so we can eat our breakfast without getting pointed at by strangers?”

More looks get traded between the couple. The guy says, “Sure?”

Marco looks between the two of them. They still look curious, incredulous, and the woman keeps looking around Marco at the rest of them. When Rachel steps into her line of sight, the woman’s gaze darts quickly back at her plate.

Marco severely doubts they’re going to spend the rest of their meal chatting pleasantly to each other instead of sneaking glances at them out of the corner of their eyes and trying to talk without moving their mouths.

Marco puts on his very best not-quite-threatening smile. “Hey, if you can’t manage it, you can always leave.”

“Huh,” is what the guy finally comes out with.

Marco nods towards the door. “You could leave. Get on with the rest of your day and quit pestering us. Your choice.”

More staring, both at them and at each other. Marco leans against the side of their table and waits. “So?”

The woman speaks up for the first time. “We were just finishing our meals, actually- so we’ll, uh, we’ll go.”

Across from her, the guy is making several expressions one after the other, all which convey the idea that he’s not on board with this plan, but when he looks up at Marco it’s with a strained smile. “Yeah,” he says, pushing his chair back. He grabs the rest of his toast, which he had been most of the way through, and pushes it into his mouth as he turns to leave.

Marco watches them go. The instant they leave the table they instantly move towards each other and walk out with their arms brushing. The guy starts to say something on the way out only to get shushed by the woman, but she’s the one that turns to him, mouth moving rapidly around words Marco can’t hear through the door. Then they’re out of sight.

Rachel gives him a look as she walks back with him to the table, but she doesn’t say anything. She lets him slide into the booth to sit in his usual spot, then sits beside him and rests her elbows on the table, leaning forwards.

Marco cranes his neck to get a glimpse of the kitchen as a waitress opens the door and walks through into it. “Food should be here soon. There’s not much traffic.”

“What did you do,” Cassie asks.

“I didn’t _do_ anything,” Marco says. “They left. Hey, here we go.”

He sits back and sends Maureen the sunniest smile he can manage as she puts his plate of waffles in front of him, and a plate of eggs in front of Cassie.

“You’re amazing,” Marco tells Maureen. Then: “Oh, could my friend here get some more vinegar?”

Maureen gives Ax a look, probably because they haven’t had any food to dip it in yet. But she says, “Sure,” and takes the empty bowl without comment. She adds, “Yours are all coming up,” as she heads back into the kitchen.

Marco picks up the banged-up fork that sits precariously on the side of his plate and digs into his waffles. There’s so much whipped cream it’s hard to get to the actual waffles at first, and there’s a gigantic pile of berries to the left of them.

It doesn’t take long for Maureen to come back with everyone’s plates, and soon the rest of the table is tucking into their assorted breakfasts. It’s… nice, even with the residual tenseness from before that they’re all doing their best to ignore. Food, Marco has always known, is a great distraction.

Half to keep the normal-ness up and half because he wants it, Marco trades Jake half a waffle for a sausage. After this, Cassie shovels some egg onto Ax’s plate when he wolfs down his bacon monstrosity in a truly impressive amount of time.

Marco finishes next, and he takes the opportunity to start in on list preparations. “So, I was thinking one of us with handy-dandy adult morphs, one that looks middle-aged or something so they wouldn’t bother IDing them, could make themselves useful and go and get booze. We were gonna do the clubbing-drinking thing at the same time, but it occurred to me that getting a bunch of traumatized kid-soldiers drunk for the first time and shoving them into a badly-lit, sweaty crowd might not be the best plan, so we might just do it back at the motel. Thoughts? Comments?”

He waits for everyone to stop chewing. Some take longer than others.

“Sounds like a plan,” Jake says, but he’s not looking at Marco.

“Hey, no-one’s gonna force it down your throat,” he starts, but Jake shakes his head.

“I’ll go along with it. We’re doing your list, remember?”

Marco tries to meet his eyes. “Yeah, but it’s an ever-changing medium. If we aren’t really feeling one of the things on it, we can-”

“I said I’ll do it,” Jake says. Then, unconvincingly: “Drinking with a bunch of friends. Should be fun.”

Marco frowns. He sounds like he’s going to a funeral. A funeral of someone he doesn’t really care about and is only going to out of politeness, but still.

Tobias says, “Um, guys, Ax is licking the vinegar bowl clean.”

“Come on, man,” Marco says on instinct, turning to look at him.

Ax finishes licking it and places the bowl, now spit-clean, on the table. “It was very enjoyable after eating the bacon. Bay-cuhn.”

“You just had Cassie’s eggs.”

“Also after the eggs,” Ax adds. He rubs his finger hopefully against his grease-streaked plate, then starts sucking his fingers.

Marco tries to be casual about averting his gaze back to his own plate. Not the time, he tells himself. Definitely not the time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“When Rachel gets back we should play Never Have I Ever.”

Cassie looks up from her book, which she’s been reading for a few hours now with relative success; sitting on her motel bed with her back against the wall. At her feet is Marco, who is flopped sideways across the bed with his legs and arms splayed out. They had decided to drink in Cassie, Rachel and Ax’s motel room, solely because it’s bigger.

“The version of stuff we _have_ done, not stuff we haven’t,” Marco continues.

From the bedside table where he’s perched, Tobias asks, <Doesn’t that go against the fundamental rules of the game?>

“I always thought it was played like that,” Jake says.

<What is ‘Never Have I Ever,’> Ax asks.

Marco says, “Oh shit,” and sits up to launch an overly detailed explanation of a game that, in Cassie’s mind and also Marco’s long-winded rant, is pretty damn simple: someone says something they’ve done. If someone else has also done the thing, they drink.

Cassie assumes the rules will get looser and less defined once the booze sets in. When her parents had other parents over for board game nights- which made Cassie forever link Monopoly and red wine in her mind- the rules had gone misinterpreted or out the window. Sometimes they’d started making up their own rules. More often than not, board pieces or the board itself got thrown.

 There’s a knock on the door. Marco leaps off the bed with what Cassie feels is unnecessary enthusiasm, but also endearing in a Marco sort of way, which means it edges on annoying.

An old woman stands outside the door, white-hair in a hasty ponytail, dressed like a college student who’s given up on the semester.

It’s always strange seeing her friends morph into different people rather than animals. There will be flickers of their actual selves underneath it- how they stand, what they say, what words they put inflictions on. For Rachel, it’s in her expression, in how she leans into her hip.

Old Woman Rachel, who looks nothing like what Cassie assumes Rachel will look like as an old woman, says, “Buenos Dios, bitches.” She holds up a bottle of tequila.

Marco holds out his hand and starts turning the bottle around in his hands when she gives it to him. “Yeesh. You had to get tequila?”

She shrugs. She’s already demorphing, even though the door isn’t closed behind her. Cassie knows they won’t be in danger if someone sees them, but it still gets her craning her neck to see past Rachel, checking if there’s anyone in the parking lot who would be able to see.

Rachel says, “What’s wrong with tequila,” as she grows taller, her voice going from croaky to smooth, along with her skin. Her white hair thickens, lengthens and turns blonde. She shakes it out of her ponytail.

<I heard it’s the only alcohol that isn’t a depressant,> Tobias says. When everyone turns to stare at him, he says, <I don’t know if it’s true, but it’s what I heard.>

Marco points at him. “I’m going to choose to believe that. Now get into a form that can imbibe alcohol.”

Tobias pauses. <I mean, _technically_ ->

Cassie presses a bookmark into her book and tries not to smirk at the image of a drunk hawk.

“Get opposable thumbs already,” Marco tells him. He drops the tequila bottle on Cassie’s bed and heads over to the plastic bag he’d brought into their room after they decided it’d be the best room to do this in.

Cassie watches as he brings out a large row of plastic shot glasses of varying colours, six plastic mugs and a large bottle of coke. He’s arranging it on the carpet in a way that suggests everyone come and join him, so Cassie climbs off her bed and heads over. She grabs the bottle of tequila as she goes and sets it next to Marco as she sits down in what is rapidly becoming a circle of the six of them, sans Ax and Tobias who are both in the middle of morphing human.

Along with the others, Cassie sets her watch to an hour and 45 minutes from now. They had all decided it’d be better for all of them to do it instead of just one, since their ability to notice things like watches going off is going to be impaired soon, but hopefully it’ll hard to ignore when there are six watches beeping instead of two.

Cassie looks up as Rachel settles next to her. “Are we doing the version where we say what we have done or haven’t done?”

“Have done,” Marco says distractedly. He’s busy pouring booze into shot glasses.

Cassie leans over and twists the lid off the coke, then starts pouring it into the plastic mugs.

“Thanks,” Marco tells her as he starts passing the shots around, then the mugs Cassie has filled. Soon everyone is sitting with a shot of tequila and a mug of coke.

Ax, who is sitting next to Marco, lifts one after the other up to his mouth. He looks considering after dipping his tongue into the coke, but when he does the same to the tequila his face contorts.

“Gah,” he says. “ _Ah_.”

“Yeah, it’ll do that,” Marco tells him. “Okay-”

Cassie follows suit in looking over at Rachel, who has just picked up her shot and downed it and is now taking large gulps from her mug.

“What,” she says when she notices everyone’s staring. “You take a shot to get things started. That’s how drinking games work.”

“No, drinking games start with the actual game,” Marco says. But he takes her shot glass and refills it when she holds it out at him. “Okay, who’s starting?”

When no one replies, Marco says, “Fine, never have I ever kissed someone.”

Cassie hopes they’re going in a circle and she gets to be last, since she can’t think of anything after that. Everyone drinks, and as Cassie tips the contents of the shot glass into her mouth she thinks that maybe this is a mistake.

_You’ve had worse things in your mouth,_ she tells herself, thinking of viscera and guts that didn’t even belong to her; of sinking fangs into Taxxons that burst like pus under the pressure. Still, it takes an effort to swallow and it seems to be having the same effect on everyone else around the circle, with all of them instantly reaching for their mugs.

“Ohgod,” Tobias says, strangled.

“You’ve eaten rats,” Rachel reminds him, but she sounds just as strained despite her initial shot.

“Yeah, but still. _Ugh_.”

“When did you, uh.” Jake trails off and sips at his coke. He’s looking at Marco.

Cassie does the same. Everyone else, she would’ve assumed: Jake has kissed her, obviously, and Rachel and Tobias kissed each other, and Ax kissed that andalite girl one time-

Marco passes the tequila bottle to Ax. “Pass it around, I’m not crawling to everyone to refill drinks,” he says, and then puts the bottle of coke in the middle. At first Cassie thinks he isn’t going to answer, but then he says, “Showbiz has been an experience, folks.”

Then he develops a sudden interest in his mug, turning it around in his hands. Cassie assumes that’s all they’re going to get from him right now.

“So that’s pretty much as far as we can get for the regular Never Have I Ever round,” Rachel says.

Marco makes a noise. When all heads turn to him again, he looks consideringly into his mug, then says, “Never have I ever sucked dick,” and then downs his newly-refilled shot.

Rachel barks a laugh. “You- yeah?”

“Is the person saying the thing supposed to drink,” Cassie asks, instead of _what the heck, when did this happen, who was it?_

Marco makes a face that Cassie interprets as _no, but who cares_?

“How was it,” Rachel continues.

“Do we really need to know,” Jake says loudly.

Marco grins. “Showbiz has been an experience,” he repeats.

Rachel leans forwards past Ax to swat at his knee. “Come on, how was it?”

“Not great!”

“Oh.” Rachel leans back. “Damn.”

He shrugs. “We both went down on each other-”

Both Jake and Tobias make noises, though Tobias comes out sounding a lot more entertained than Jake.

“-neither of us came,” Marco continues. “Very disappointing. I was looking forward to that experience and it was just, y’know, nothing much. Anyway!” He refills his shot and sits back. “Never have I ever…”

“It’s someone else’s turn,” Cassie points out.

“Yeah, don’t hog the turns,” Tobias says.

“Right, sorry.” Marco turns to Ax, who is oddly quiet and staring into his mug. “Buddy?”

Ax startles. “Oh. Yes. Never have I ever. Uh.” He looks around the group helplessly. “Been very close to dying,” he finishes.

A groan travels around the group as everyone drinks for a second time.

“Weak sauce,” Rachel says. The tequila starts making its rounds again, and as Rachel fills up her shot she says, “My turn! Never have I ever…”

She sits back, shaking her hair out over her shoulders. Her posture is becoming more relaxed than Cassie’s seen her become apart from when she’s sleeping. Then again, she has just had three shots in pretty quick succession.

Cassie can already feel a telltale ease she assumes has to be alcohol: it’s just starting to sink in. She thinks she feels heavier and slightly slower. If this is all booze does, she’s going to be very disappointed.

“Never have I ever lost a limb,” is what Rachel finally decides on.

“We are going to get wasted way too fast,” Jake says, just before he necks his shot along with everyone else.

“Perhaps we should fill our- small glasses-”

“Shot glasses,” Marco supplies.

“-halfway,” Ax continues.

Cassie does just this when the bottle makes its way to her again. It’s Jake’s turn next, so she says to him, “Maybe make this one less applicable to all of us?”

“Good plan,” Jake says. “Uh. Shit.”

“Never have I ever gotten a bowl cut,” Rachel suggests.

Jake waves her down. “Never have I ever died in an alternate time stream,” he says triumphantly. When Tobias drinks his shot, Jake frowns. “No way, when did you-?”

“That alternate future when Rachel ate me with barbeque sauce,” Tobias says.

“Oh. Right.” Jake knocks back his own shot. “One of us needs to write a biography.”

Marco sighs. “I hate it when teenagers write biographies. Like, pop stars. What the hell have they done? They spend the whole book trying to draw everything out because they’re, like, 17 and haven’t done anything.”

“We have enough fodder for a biography,” Cassie says.

“Memoir,” Tobias says.

Marco turns to him. “What was that, bird-boy?”

“It’d be a memoir,” Tobias says. “Biographies go over the whole life, memoirs are concentrated in one place in a life, or one theme- like, the period of years you had an eating disorder or the years relevant to it. We’d just write about the war, right? That’d be a memoir.”

Cassie rests her chin against her hands. It’s really a shame Tobias didn’t get to go to school. She doesn’t think he would have pursued anything particularly academic, but he still had a lot to offer, even if he never got great test scores.

This gets her thinking about her own schooling, high school and beyond. Med school, and even just getting into it, is going to require grades Cassie never had the chance to get during the war. She’s pretty sure she can do it now that she isn’t ditching last period to go fight a war, or too busy thinking about said war to study, or falling asleep in class because she snuck home at 3 in the morning last night after bringing down the yeerks’ latest plan.

“It’s your turn.”

“Hmm?” Cassie turns to Jake, who is refilling his shot to maybe a third of the way full. Right, the game.  “Uh, never have I ever…”

She blows out a breath and thinks about it as she pours her own shot and passes the bottle to Marco. Something that just applies to her. Okay. “Never have I ever gotten sprayed by a skunk while I was giving it medicine.”

When she tips her shot back, no-one else follows suit. She sips at her coke and feels oddly smug.

The game continues and gets more and more specific as they realize how many shared experiences they have. Ax turns out to be the best at getting no-one but himself to drink; what with his spending most of his life on an alien planet.

The booze sinks in slowly- Cassie will check in with herself once every ten minutes or so and find that it’s harder to focus for long period of time, or that her fingers feel a bit fuzzy when they rub against the carpet, or that the tequila no longer tastes like devil’s piss. Things get funnier, which Cassie thinks is half the alcohol and half because everyone’s loosening up enough to crack jokes.

The turns become long and have even longer pauses in between them, either due to someone having to think about it or because conversation sidetracks them for minutes on end. After a while the conversation has overtaken the game, and later Cassie thinks the last turn that was officially a turn, before they all stopped caring and started drinking when they felt like it, was when Marco says, “Never have I ever thought about killing a family member.”

Rachel and Jake both drink along with him. Rachel is grinning at something Ax had said about ten seconds earlier, and is still grinning when she refills her shot and says, “Never have I ever gone through with it,” and drinks.

“It’s not your turn,” Cassie says, and then realizes that the circle they had been sitting in is now less of a circle and more of a scribble. There’s not really an order they can follow anymore: Ax and Marco have moved to sit against the chest of drawers that holds the TV; Jake is sitting with his back against Cassie’s bed; Tobias is in the bathroom and has been for a weirdly long time.

The only one who is even close to the spot they’d started in is Rachel, and Cassie had crawled over towards her a while ago. At the time it had been about comparing finger length, but Cassie hadn’t moved back into her original spot when they’d drifted onto other topics.

They’re sitting beside each other now, their legs tangled together, their arms pressing. It feels more intimate than anything Cassie’s experienced in a long time. It feels precious, almost, but Cassie thinks that’s probably the tequila talking. She appreciates it anyway, and is ready to pull back at anytime if Rachel starts getting that faraway look or flinches or goes stiff or seems any other kind of uncomfortable. She keeps an eye on Rachel, but Rachel seems more fine than she has been since… before the last year of the war, probably.

Cassie keeps watching her anyway, just in case.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ax feels at his face. Humans have told him it’s a good face. Still, Ax can’t get over the fact of his nose, which he still holds as the ugliest part of humans. And it’s always _right there_. It’s not like he can ignore it.

Also, his mouth. He can’t stop running his tongue over his teeth; biting at his lips. What a strange thing. What a sensation. There are so many different sensations introduced when he’s in human morph. Like walking with two legs.

“I do not think I would be able to walk very well right now,” Ax tells Marco, who is leaning his head against his shoulder and watching Cassie and Rachel argue with Jake about something Ax can’t follow.

“Me neither, Ax-man,” Marco says. He yawns and Ax sees a flash of teeth.

Ax asks, “Do you sometimes wonder at the strangeness of your own teeth?”

Marco pauses. “Well, _now_ I am,” he says.

Ax watches his cheeks protrude as Marco tongues the inside of his own mouth. “Teeth are strange.”

“Teeth _are_ strange,” Marco agrees, showing his teeth in a grin. He aims it up at Ax, who experiences a worrying jolt in his stomach region. He’s starting to think he knows what all the strange Marco-related stomach movements are about. He never thought ‘my stomach fluttered’ was meant to be taken so literally.

_This is not how I expected my life to go_ , he wants to tell Marco. He’s sitting against a drawer with an alien who Ax has developed romantic feelings for leans against him. He looks around the room: all around it are other aliens wearing odd clothes and talking with a part of their body Ax doesn’t even have. He’s lightyears away from his home planet and has been for years, and during those years Ax has fought a war for a planet he’s grown increasingly fond of, with aliens he’s also grown increasingly fond of. He has fought countless battles with them, thanks to a morphing ability given to them by his now-dead brother. He’s discovered a nephew who is not only his own age but an alien, who is now stuck in a body not his own. Said nephew, an alien, has been his _shorm_ for years.

Ax lets his head thunk back against the drawers. “How is this my life,” he wonders aloud.

Marco makes a noise of agreement.

Ax looks down at him. Marco has now gone back to watching the Rachel-Cassie-Jake argument, which now looks to be taken over by Jake and Rachel while Cassie sits against Rachel and shakes with laughter. It is good to see her laugh. Since the war ended and they all separated, Ax has missed Cassie more than anyone apart from Marco.

_I am friends with aliens_ , Ax thinks. _They have a_ kerrashil _with me_.

Then he thinks _what the fuck_ , and feels his mouth stretch in a smile. Nowadays he’ll use human speech patterns, human phrases and slang, and often he won’t realize he’s doing it unless someone points it out.

When he communicates with his father on their bi-monthly conversations, his father often mentions that Ax is acting more like a human. Ax is sure it’s not meant as a compliment, but as something his father worries about. Ax doesn’t know how worried he is about it himself.

Apparently Marco is also doing self-reflection, because he says, “Remember when we first met and you threatened to kill me?”

“What?” Ax filters through his memories. Surely he never did that.

“You did,” Marco says, reading Ax’s expression. “Well, implicitly. You held your tail-blade to my throat when I said Visser Three’s name. You were fucking scary before I knew you were a big dork.”

“Ha,” Ax says. Sometimes he says the laugh instead of making the sound. It ‘weirds Marco out,’ as Marco puts it, but Ax does it sometimes to see him groan or push him in a way that is meant to show weary affection. 

He’s instantly gratified when Marco digs his fingers lightly into Ax’s side and says, “Quit it.”

Ax grins. “I am still fucking scary,” he says, and Marco’s eyes go unfocused.

“Yeah, you are. All of us are, I guess. But you’re still a dork.”

“Says the king dork,” Ax says, and it gets Marco laughing enough that Ax can feel the vibrations.

“Where-” Marco sits up so his head is no longer resting on Ax’s shoulder. Ax finds he misses it.

Marco continues, “Where’d you pick that up?”

Ax thinks about it but can’t recall. “Around.”

“Around,” Marco mutters. He settles against the drawers and brings his knees up, resting his arms on them and then his head on his arms.

Ax watches him blink. His eyelashes are very long. It had been a slow thing, Ax’s feelings for Marco, friendship and something curiously more growing at once. How could it have happened?

He thinks back to their sitcom-watching, the countless hours of it. Marco introducing Ax to different aspects of Earth’s culture, Marco giving Ax a handhold to drag himself into the conversation when he began to get excluded. Marco providing him with different foods, Marco gravitating towards Ax and Ax towards him in group situations.

He draws the image to mind: Marco at the very beginning, before Ax had left his ship at the bottom of the ocean. Marco had been just another human regarding him warily, though at times he masked it with odd humour. Ax hadn’t seen Marco’s ruthlessness, his loyalty, until later.

_I am glad to know you_ , Ax thinks. _It is an honour_.

As if he’d heard him, Marco looks over at him. Ax panics, hopes that his feelings aren’t written all over his face- he doesn’t have the best control over human expressions at times.

He says, “You are taller.”

Marco’s eyebrows crinkle, but he keeps smiling. “Yeah, that tends to happen.”

“Though you are still short.”

“I-” Marco’s mouth moves around nothing for a second. “I’m as tall as Cassie now! Maybe taller! She won’t let me stand back to back with her.”

“I do not understand your interest being tall,” Ax says.

Marco’s smile shrinks, but only slightly. His shoulders lift and fall as he drops Ax’s gaze. “Girls are short.”

“Boys can also be short,” Ax says. “You are proof.”

Marco presses his mouth into his arms.

Ax watches his hair fall into his eyes; watches Marco brush it behind an ear. “Your hair is good now. It was good before, but now it is… a new kind of good.”

Marco laughs into his arms and raises his head again. “Thanks. I had a stylist. Like, an actual stylist. It was so weird. With all the rich, hot people around, and everyone in such good clothes and walking and talking like they’re always on camera- I felt like an alien.”

Ax doesn’t know quite what to say to that. He can relate, but he doubts that’s what Marco wants to hear. “You have been expressing excitement for your future in… Hollywood,” Ax says, still unsure of the consistency between the place and the verb, because apparently people can be in Hollywood while not being in the physical place. It’s more of a thing you do, Ax has been told.

“I am excited,” Marco says. “I’m just nervous. It’ll go away.”

Ax nods, though he isn’t sure how accurate Marco’s statement is. The nod is more to make him feel better.

Marco rests his face on his arms again. Ax wonders if now would be the best time to tell him about his upcoming Princehood, the title waiting for him at home if he wants it. He doesn’t know what would happen if he came home but rejected it. But then again, why would he reject becoming a Prince?

As Cassie gets up and starts giving filling everyone’s mugs with water, Ax wonders where Tobias got to. He’s been in the bathroom for a while. When Cassie heads into the bathroom with a mug, Ax watches the door.

Marco says, “I missed you, Ax-man.”

It startles Ax into looking over at him. “I missed you also,” he says.

He won’t tell him now, he decides. But soon. Tobias had found out almost by accident. And after Tobias, Marco is the first person who should know.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tobias sits in the bathtub that is still decked out with Ax’s bedsheets and drinks the water Cassie had come in and given him.

“How’re you doing,” she’d asked, eyes full of kindness and concern. He looked and her and thought back to her as a wolf, ripping out Hork-Bjar throats.

“I’m okay,” he’d told her. She’d tried to get more out of him, but then she had squeezed his shoulder hesitantly and left.

Tobias gets through the water faster than he thought he would. He probably needs it. He checks his watch: there’s maybe half an hour until demorphing time. What’s it going to be like being drunk as a hawk?

He rearranges the pillow so it sits better under his head. _At least I’m not a violent drunk_ , he thinks. _Morose is definitely a one-up from violent._

There’s a knock on the door. “Yeah?”

Rachel comes in. She smacks the door closed behind her, and Tobias can tell she’s pretty fucking smashed just from how she stands: hands on her hips, coming to a stop with a sway.

“People need to pee,” she announces.

“I’ll cover my eyes,” Tobias says.

She rolls her eyes. Then she goes over to the toilet and- okay, that’s happening. Tobias shuts his eyes quickly and puts an arm over them for good measure.

_The romance is gone_ , he thinks distantly as the sound of urinating goes on for an impressive amount of time. He listens, suddenly glad human ears are almost useless compared to his usual ones, as Rachel finishes, pulls her tights up and flushes.

“You can open your eyes now,” Rachel says.

Tobias does. He drops his arm back to his side to see Rachel washing her hands.

“Having a good time?”

She hums. “Yeah. Kinda. Hey.” She whirls around. “You know what would be great?”

“What,” he says warily.

She’s grinning. It’s not a battle grin, but it’s close. “We should go for a fly.”

“We should?”

“Yeah!” She spreads out her arms like wings. “I haven’t been flying in ages. Flying with you- I remember thinking there was nothing better in the world.”

She says it so matter-of-factly that Tobias has to drop her gaze for a second. Jesus.

“We’re drunk,” he reminds her. Some more than others, he thinks to himself.

She shrugs. “There’s no law against flying under the influence.”

“Planes.” He shakes his head. He might be a bit drunker than he thought. “Uh- pilots.”

“Oh. Right.” She leans her hip against the sink. “There’s no laws for birds. Birds don’t follow the law. Birds live outside the system.”

Tobias bites back a smile. “They’re gonna have to invent new laws about morphing,” he says, instead of _god I love you_.

“Yeah,” Rachel says. She picks at something that’s crusted against the sink. It looks vaguely like toothpaste, but Tobias can’t see shit with these human eyes. It would be a relief to be back in his- well, not his real body. The body that feels right would be closer.

He sighs and starts pushing himself up. “Help me out of here.”

She does. The phantom heat of her booze-clumsy fingers around his arms sinks through his clothes and lingers. But then he starts to morph, and by the time feathers prick out of his face, his arms are shrinking into wings and the phantom heat dissipates.

She holds an arm out and he hops onto it, then tries not to squeeze too hard with his claws when she marches out of the bathroom. “We’re going out, don’t wait up.”

“Where’re you going,” asks Cassie.

“Nowhere in particular,” Rachel says as she reaches the door. “We’ll be bac k later.”

“Wh-”

Rachel doesn’t stop to listen to whatever Jake had to say, and Tobias feels kind of bad as Rachel treks down the metal stairs that lead to the parking lot. She sets Tobias down on the asphalt, shucks off her hoodie onto the bottom stair.

<The watch,> he reminds her.

“Right,” she says. She sets it, then takes it off and drops it next to her hoodie. Then she starts to morph: her tights and shirt turn to feathers along with her skin.

Tobias watches her shrink and change until a bald eagle is ruffling its feathers in front of him.

<Sweet,> she says. Then she flaps hard and takes off, and Tobias picks up the watch in his talons and follows.

The first thing he notices is how noticeable it is, being drunk and flying. As they climb higher in the sky, Tobias takes stock of himself- things feel zoomed in, like he has to try hard to focus on a lot of things at once, and moving feels nicer than usual. He doesn’t feel like he’s going to fall out of the sky or drop the watch or fly into a building.

<How’re you doing,> he asks as Rachel continues to climb.

<I’m _awesome_ ,> is what he gets back. He watches as Rachel, in her bald-eagle body, does a clunky spin that a real bald eagle would never do.

For a while they just coast, flying slow. Tobias keeps an eye on Rachel as she performs barrel rolls and the like, whooping in thought-speak.

After they’ve been flying for a while, it starts getting dark- they had started drinking at a time Tobias assumes isn’t socially acceptable. When Tobias suggests they should turn back, Rachel tells him they should dive.

Tobias looks over at her. <Okay,> he says, and clutches the watch tight in his talons.

They climb higher and higher, then tuck their wings into their body. Even despite the worry, Tobias does give himself over to it- he even joins Rachel in her joyful yelling as they plummet towards the ground, wind streaking past their bodies.

They fall a bit longer than they should. Tobias has to tell Rachel twice to pull up, and for a moment he thinks he’s going to have to crash into her to get her attention, but then her wings are snapping out and she’s carried upwards.

Tobias flares his wings out and they jerkily come to fly beside each other again.

<We should really get back,> he says.

<Yeah,> Rachel replies, but she sounds too distracted from the high of the dive. Tobias doesn’t really blame her. He still does it sometimes, flying far into the sky and letting it hold him as he falls.

They turn back towards the motel. Tobias watches the sky get darker. He’s still not sober, but he has a handle on it, and he lets himself enjoy the relaxing ride: flying, not out of hunger or being chased by god knows what, but flying for sheer enjoyment. And Rachel is next to him, sounding a strange sort of happy, and Tobias had gone through periods of thinking that they’d never do this again.

He’d missed it. He’d missed this, he’d missed her, and what she’d said about flying with him, about it being the best thing in the world- well. He can relate.

He’s distracted enough that when the watch starts beeping in his talons, he startles. He’d half-forgotten he’d been carrying it. <Rachel, we’re running low on time here.>

<Oh. How far are we from the motel?>

Tobias considers, examining their surroundings. It’s difficult in the fading light. <I don’t know if we’ll make it in time.>

<Then I’ll land somewhere and demorph. It’s fine.> She doesn’t sound worried enough.

Tobias looks down at the watch: they have ten minutes. He glances down at it over the next few minutes, keeping track of time. When it hits five minutes, he says, <Rachel, five minutes.>

<I think we’ll be able to make it to the motel,> she says.

Tobias doubts it. <Maybe we should land now.>

<It’s fine,> she says. She lets out a sigh, but it’s not of exasperation. It’s of contentment: she looks proud and in control as the bald eagle coasts through the sky next to him.

Tobias tracks the numbers on the watch anxiously. At three minutes, he says, <Okay, we’re landing now.>

<I can see the motel,> Rachel points out.

<We’re too far away,> Tobias argues.

<Oh, we are _not_ ->

< _Three minutes_ , Rachel! We’re landing.>

<But I can->

<Rachel!>

<Fine,> she snaps, and dives again. Tobias tucks his wings in and follows: they’re too low to dive like this, and Rachel very nearly scrapes the ground as she comes in to land.

She’s demorphing by the time Tobias catches up, and Tobias watches in relief as feathers bleed back into skin, her wings elongating and turning to arms and hands. She bends and picks up the watch from Tobias’ talons when her fingers still have feathered stubs.

The very first thing out of her mouth is “Happy?” It comes out slurred and choppy, but not from the booze. Her vocal chords haven’t fully formed yet.

<What the hell was that,> Tobias asks.

She shrugs. “What was what,” she says, voice back to normal now.

<That!>

“Come on, I made it.”

<Yeah, but you nearly didn’t! Who the fuck cares if we make it to the motel?> One time Tobias does miss being human is when he needs to yell. It’s harder to be expressive when you don’t have hands to wave. <Fuck, Rachel! You _want_ to get stuck as an eagle? >

Her face contorts. “No, okay,” she snaps. “I don’t see what would be so great about being a fucking bird!”

This stops them both. Tobias looks up at her. She stares down at him, more than four times his height. Her lips purse like they always do when she’s trying not to cry.

Tobias wants to take her hand, but he’s a hawk. He wants to take her hand, but she’d push him away or snap at him some more.

What would they do now? Him, birdboy, who spent his whole life living on the outside until something came along and made it flesh and feathers. And Rachel, the girl who honed herself into a weapon and can’t change back.

Rachel turns around and starts walking. Tobias takes off and flies about a meter overhead until Rachel says, “Just land on my fucking shoulder already,” and Tobias gives in and does.

Other than that, their walk to the motel is mostly silent. When they make it there, Rachel starts up the steps. She doesn’t acknowledge the hoodie and skirt still lying puddled on the bottom stair.

<Hey,> Tobias says. He hops off her shoulder and flies down, picking up as much of her hoodie in his beak and hefts it upwards.

Rachel reaches out and takes it, then bends and picks up the skirt. “Thanks,” she says, pulling them on one after the other.

Tobias flies back up to her shoulder, but Rachel doesn’t continue up the steps.

<Rach?>

She doesn’t look at him. “Do you think if you never got stuck as a hawk-” She stops, grips the railing. Continues, “-would we have ended up together?”

Tobias pauses. <I don’t know,> he says honestly. <I hope so.>

Rachel makes a noise in her throat. It’s not quite a laugh.

<We’re still friends,> Tobias tries.

“Are we?”

<I want to be. I want-> He stops. He wants a lot of things. He doesn’t want to be human, not anymore. The hawk is a part of him. He can’t imagine a life where he doesn’t get to fly. Still, he’s not entirely hawk, either- he’s not the guy Rachel wishes he could be, the guy who could walk with her through normality and go with her to movies, but he’s still Tobias.

<You guys are kind of all I’ve got,> Tobias says finally. Sometimes he feels like they’re the only thing holding him in reality, in giving himself wholly over to being a hawk. He doesn’t want to know what would happen if he lost them.

Rachel says, “Yeah.” As she starts climbing the stairs again, she reaches up haltingly to stroke his head. Tobias leans into it and nips at her fingers.

It’s not enough, but Tobias thinks they’re both learning to live with it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

At this point Jake assumes he’s the only one who’s going to sleep in the other motel room.

When Jake had left what had originally been Ax, Cassie and Rachel’s room, everyone had been either asleep or close to it: Ax, in his full andalite glory, had been curled up on the floor in a nest of blankets from Cassie’s bed. Marco was lying with his head on Ax’s side, using him as a pillow and lying under covers he’d stolen from Rachel’s bed.

The bath, where he is supposed to be sleeping, was occupied by Rachel. When Jake last went in to pee, Tobias was nestled next to her. Cassie’s bed had Cassie in it, though she was only covered in a sheet, since Ax and Marco stole the rest of it.

Jake stands at the sink of his own motel room and continues to chug water. He’s definitely read somewhere that if you drink enough water you don’t get a hangover, and from the way he feels right now, he thinks a hangover is definitely in the cards if he goes to bed.

He goes to the bathroom, pees for a ridiculously long time, then comes out and considers his bed- his head is starting to feel clearer.

He heads outside instead, only to find someone else already leaning against the balcony railing staring up at the sky like he’d planned to do.

“Hi,” Cassie says when she sees him.

“Hey.”

Cassie’s holding a glass of water. Her thumb strokes small lines against it, but she stops when she tilts it towards him.

“Thanks,” he says. He comes to lean against the railing beside her, taking the glass of water, sipping at it and then handing it back.

She takes it. “Marco already has fireworks. Nothing dangerous,” she says when Jake makes a face. “The plan now is to head to a city, go clubbing, then head to the beach.”

Jake nods. “Hey, are you sure fireworks are a good idea?”

“Why?”

He shrugs. “My grandpa, he could never do any of the 4th of July stuff. He said it brought up bad memories of the war.”

Cassie hums. She presses the glass absently against her cheek and Jake watches her skin give against it. “Well,” she says. “Ours was more psychological trauma than bombs and shells. But I get what you mean.”

“I guess we’ll find out.”

“I guess we will,” she says. She leans her elbows against the railing and looks out over the parking lot, then up at the stars. “This was a good first time getting drunk.”

Jake shifts from foot to foot. It’s warm, but he could use a jacket right now. “This wasn’t my first time getting drunk,” he admits.

She looks over at him. “What?”

He thinks about changing the subject. That’s what they do, right? Avoid the painful things. Hide in the normal, teenage shit they’re fumbling through. But he finds himself saying, “Just after the war ended, when I got my parents back. We had about a week living at our cousin’s place- distant cousin, some guy I’d never met. It was just after Tom’s-”

He still can’t say it. Why can’t he say it? “Uh, my mom was drinking gin. She gave me some. Probably more than she should’ve.”

Cassie is quiet for a bit. Then she says, “How was it?”

He snorts. “How do you think? I couldn’t exactly enjoy it.”

“No, I know-”

“I threw up.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Jake clears his throat. “This was- better.”

They fall into silence. Jake tilts his head up towards the sky. Where was Ax’s homeworld, again? Ax had pointed it out to him once, he’s sure of it. What was going on there now? If Jake doesn’t go to prison, will they want him involved? He’s still the leader of the Animorphs to the public, to the military- Earth’s and otherwise. If they do want to involve him, would Jake take them up on it?

More than anything, the idea makes him tired.

His elbow brushes Cassie’s. Is she thinking about the life outside their planet, what that night sky means to everyone on Earth now? She could just be admiring the stars. Jake thinks that she could be doing either.

He imagines the phantom feel of her elbow against his. This is the first time they’ve been alone since the road trip started. The last time before that was in the hospital when Cassie had said _I’m sorry_ and walked off.

Remembering it makes Jake think back to another time they were alone together, just before the war ended. They’d talked about getting together and agreed that a year after the war ended, if they won- they’d talk about it. Being together.

It hasn’t been a year yet. Jake doesn’t know if it matters.

Beside him, Cassie shifts. Their elbows brush again. Does Cassie even notice? Surely she must.

She offers the glass of water again, wordlessly. Equally wordlessly, he takes it. He puts it to his mouth at the same spot her lips had touched it. Does Cassie still think about the time they kissed?

He doesn’t ask. Instead he thinks of the beds back in Cassie’s motel room, all bare apart from Cassie and her lone sheet. “If you want, you could use Marco’s bed in our room.”

At first she looks surprised, but it’s quickly replaced by something Jake can’t read. “Um. Okay,” she says after a second, and Jake is suddenly nervous. He thinks about suggesting she take Marco’s covers and move them to her room, but that sounds ridiculous even in his head.

She follows him back to his room and Jake pointedly doesn’t look at her as he climbs into bed. He closes his eyes and the room doesn’t swim around him. He listens to a clink of glass- Cassie putting it on a bedside table- and sheets rustling.

Then there’s silence except for their breathing. Jake tries to be as quiet as possible so he can hear Cassie’s breath; the soft inhales and raspy exhales.

As Jake listens, he misses her so much it sets off an ache behind his ribs. This isn’t a new feeling. Sometimes near the end of the war, he’d feel echoes of it when she was just a room away, or even sitting right next to him- in the last few months of the war they were all somehow so close and so far apart.

He could climb into bed next to her. He pictures it- they don’t take off each other’s clothes, they don’t even kiss, but he puts his arms around her and she rests her head against his chest. Maybe she would hold him in her arms instead.

He stays still. Their combined breathing is shockingly loud in the otherwise quiet room. Eventually their it begins sounding, to Jake, strangely melodic. It fills him with a calm he didn’t know he could feel anymore.

But that’s Cassie all over, right? He can look over at her and know where he stands. She lets him know if he’s going too far. That’s Cassie, or at least it was.

Nowadays Jake can’t stop catching glimpses of the person she could grow into.

When he sleeps, Jake dreams of being held. In the dream, familiar fingers stroke his forehead and cup his face. A thumb rubs slow, soothing circles against his cheek. There are lips against at his forehead: not pressing a kiss, but breathing slow and quiet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay! So, I have exams + summer work coming up pretty fast. You lovely people will probably get the next chapter of this fic in a few months. But possibly more than a few. Hopefully there won't be another 2 year gap. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this! I'm certainly enjoying writing it. It's really great to get to write tens of thousands of words of what is pretty much a character study/relationship study of the characters I loved so much as a kid. It's been weirdly cathartic inventing the future I wanted for the Animorphs.
> 
> I've also loved getting everyone's comments- I don't reply to most of them, but please know I really appreciate and treasure all of 'em.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The soundtrack for the Rachel portion of the fic, particuarly the club scene, is [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3_zvbyNJH8).

Marco wakes up to a faceful of blue fur.

“Mmph,” he says into the fur. He sits up, squinting, and finds that yes, he’s lying on the carpet of a hotel room that looks a lot like his but isn’t, and yes, he had used Ax as a pillow last night.

He looks down at Ax, who is being obligingly pillow-like where he’s curled up on the carpet. He’s snoring very quietly through his nose. His nose had freaked Marco out at first- it’s distinctly non-human with its blue snarls, looking almost pig-like apart from its smoothness.

Once, Ax’s nose had been just another reminder of how alien this new guy was. Nowadays it’s more a reminder of how adorable the guy is.

Marco feels the back of his neck heat up. He hadn’t done or said anything weird, right? Otherwise Ax wouldn’t want to sleep next to him in the first place. But maybe sleeping pretty much on top of him went too far, maybe people noticed and are suspecting that Marco has a crush. More people, anyway- he’s pretty sure Tobias cottoned on a while ago.

As he picks blue fur out of his eyelashes and off his tongue, he wipes a small patch of drool out of Ax’s fur.

“Sorry, man,” he whispers.

Ax’s hoof twitches, then the rest of them follow suit. Marco’s mouth twitches with them as he thinks of dogs running in dreams. Fuck, Ax is adorable.

<Yo.>

Marco cringes. He looks up to see Tobias sitting on one of the bedside tables.

Tobias inclines his feathery head. <You look _great_. >

“Yeah, yeah,” Marco whispers. It’s so quiet he can hardly hear it, but Tobias definitely can. He thinks if Tobias had lips, he’d be smirking. “So do hawks get hangovers?”

<I’m… fine.> It sounds dubious, which gets Marco smirking right back at the non-existent hawk-smirk. <A bit of a headache. I didn’t drink _that_ much, and I ate a lot before- that helps- and Cassie kept feeding me water, so. >

“Ah, Cassie. Our guardian angel-” Marco pauses as he casts his gaze around the motel room. “Who is currently missing. As is Rachel. And Jake.”

He looks around the room another time, then gets up and heads to the bathroom, only to stop when Tobias says, <Oh, Rachel’s sleeping in there.>

Marco stops with his hand on the doorknob. “In the bathroom?”

<In the tub. It’s comfy.>

Marco stares at him. Tobias stares back with his fucking hawk eyes.

“Right,” Marco whispers. “Okay. Sure.” He lets go of the knob and steps back. “Uh. Probably in the other room, then. With Jake.”

He shares another look with Tobias, who asks, <Are we still doing that bet?>

“You mean the bet from two years ago? I don’t know if that’s still, y’know, _going_.” Marco tries to remember how much money he had staked in that one. “Maybe?”

<Fair enough,> Tobias says. He ducks his beak against his wing and starts preening. <You and Ax were cute. All nuzzled together and… and whatever.>

Oh god, Marco totally talked in his sleep. He arranges his face in something he hopes is casual and boops Tobias on the beak. “I’m always cute, birdboy.”

Tobias eyes him.

<Okay,> is all he comes out with.

Marco makes a face. “Peace,” he whispers, and then he heads out to the motel balcony, suddenly itching for solitude. And a toilet, but he doesn’t want to be the one to wake Rachel up.

He spares a thought to her curled up in the tub and can’t picture her curled up in a bunch of blankets. In her mind, she sleeps with a snarl.

If possible, Rachel’s gotten even scarier since the war ended. All that violence is getting pent up and when it does get loose it feels wrong. Sure, they needed her to be what she was during the war, but in peacetime it just makes everyone around her scared- and, if they’re one of the few who care about her, sad. It’s a fun combo.

He leans on the railing of the motel balcony and shields his eyes with his hand. The sun is too fucking bright for this early in the morning.

He runs his tongue over his teeth and around his cheeks. They’re fuzzy and taste a lot worse than the alcohol that had started tasting like nothing after one too many shots.

“Ugh,” Marco says, partly because of the taste and partly because he wants this, standing on a motel balcony with his friends in rooms behind him; the disgust of the hangover taste; the sun coming up in front of him and making him squint. He wants the hangover even if it makes him feel his heartbeat in his head; he wants the memory of his friends drunk and laughing even if they had ended up talking about their usual clusterfuck of conversation material.

It’s inevitable, right, that they’d talk about getting their limbs ripped off and growing them back in mid-morph; about the impossible stress of the war as they’d tried to fake a normal life around their families; about the whole big fucking mess of it all.

Yeah. They’ll end up talking about it to each other for the rest of their lives. He can’t see how they won’t. Maybe- fucking hopefully- it’ll be replaced by years and decades worth of whatever their lives will turn into. They’ll talk about that instead of the war. But it’ll come up, of course it will, how can it not.

Marco closes his eyes against the sun and smiles. He doesn’t feel much like smiling but he wants to smile like this, leaning on a balcony, the sun on his eyelids. It feels like something he’s wanted since he was a kid, like showbiz, like fame.

His eyes fly open when a door opens behind him. It takes a second to identify the footsteps, but Marco doesn’t have to look over to know it’s Jake who settles beside him against the balcony railing. He does it anyway, just to see him. Good ol’ Jake.

He bumps their shoulders together. “Howzit?”

Jake cocks his head consideringly. “Fine,” he says. He brings up his hand to cover his eyes from the sun. “You?”

“Never better,” Marco says.

Jake’s gaze flickers over his face like he’s looking for something, but he doesn’t say anything.

They stand there like that, so close their shoulders nearly brush. It’s a comfortable silence. Marco is glad they can still have those.

“So,” Marco says. He jerks his head over his shoulder at the door Jake just came out of. “I hope Cassie’s in there with you, ‘cause otherwise we’re one Animorph down.”

Jake hesitates. “She’s in there.”

“Oh, good.” Marco watches the light throw itself across the parking lot for a few seconds, waiting it out.

Jake says, “Nothing happened. If that’s what you’re thinking.”

“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Marco says, still distantly trying to remember how much money he had in on that bet. He can’t even remember specifically what they bet on- that Jake and Cassie would have sex? That they’d get together? If it was the last one, did they technically win the bet at some point? Was what they had a relationship? It wasn’t _not_ a relationship, but Marco doubts they ever sat down and talked about it.

“Right,” Jake says. He snorts and leans harder on his elbows.

Marco turns to watch him close his eyes shut. Jake’s eyebrows crease and his hands clench, then unclench, on the railing.

“What’s up?”

“Dreams,” Jake says after a second.

Marco bumps his shoulder again, this time keeping the pressure there. “Bad ones?”

Another second passes. Jake shakes his head. “No. Not bad.”

Marco doesn’t know what to say to that. He folds his arms and twists back to watch the parking lot. Their car is one of three. Sunlight is climbing over the roof, slow enough that Marco has to strain his eyes not to blink.

“We should’ve done something like this during the war,” Jake says.

Marco blinks hard and loses track of the growing sunlight. “What?”

Jake shrugs. “Might’ve been good.”

Marco disagrees. Giving Jake’s expression, he thinks Jake does too. He doubts Jake would have agreed to anything even close to this- a holiday, a day off- when they were in the thick of it all.

 _After about a year of it we were always one step from falling to pieces_ , Marco doesn’t say. _Doing something like this could’ve been the final straw._

“You wouldn’t have gone for it,” is what Marco ends up saying instead.

Jake smiles. It’s just as unexpected as what he’d just said.

“Probably not,” he admits. Suddenly he looks like he did during the last two years of the war; impossibly older, heavy-shouldered and heavy-hearted with the knowledge that it was him that decided the fate of the whole planet. Marco is very tired of knowing that Jake has that weight on his shoulders and has been very glad to get it taken off, but he’s unsure if Jake knows that weight is gone or if Jake is still shouldering that phantom weight.

Marco tilts his head at Jake. The sunlight hits him sideways and illuminates him like a halo and when tries to picture Jake at 30 he can’t quite manage it.

 _I guess you’ll have to find out the long, hard way_ , Marco thinks to himself. He pushes himself off the balcony railing and says, “Well, catch you later. I’m heading to the vending machine. Want anything?”

“No diners today?”

“Maybe later,” Marco says. He turns around and thinks back to Ax asleep on the carpet of a hotel he didn’t know existed a few years back; on a planet he didn’t care about a few years back. Shit. How did any of them get here?

As Marco walks down the stairs and onto the parking lot pavement, his bare feet grow warm on the concrete. When his stomach twists, he tells himself it’s the hangover.

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

Ax doesn’t pay much attention for most of the morning. He wakes up and drinks out of the bathroom sink until he feels mostly andalite again. Then he morphs to human to eat the chips Marco brought him back from the vending machine, then morphs back to andalite and curls up on top of a bed until Tobias lands on his side and says, <Go-time, dude.>

Ax is too tired to morph back to human to climb the stairs, so he makes do with walking very carefully down the narrow steps which were very definitely made for bi-pedal forms.

When he gets to the parking lot safely, Marco pauses in his tirade to a half-interested Jake and turns around to give Ax a thumbs-up.

Ax returns the gesture even though he still thinks is ridiculous. Then again, humans seem to think any movements of his eye-stalks in place of communication are weird, so he guesses it’s just a culture thing.

<Is the ‘thumbs up’ something all humans do,> Ax asks to no one in particular.

He gets varied replies that all come at the same time: Rachel says, “Yeah,” Jake says, “Huh, dunno,” and Tobias says, <No, it’s a Western thing. In some other countries it’s considered offensive. I’m surprised your World Almanacs didn’t tell you.>

<I have not been keeping up to date with them,> Ax says, and pauses in his walk to the car. Everyone’s halted in order to look at Tobias, who is sitting on Ax’s shoulder.

<What,> Tobias says. <I know things.>

“You could’ve fucking helped me with my homework, man,” Marco says.

Tobias ruffles his feathers and sticks his beak under one wing. <I had better things to do. Like eating rats. Or literally anything else.>

“Aw. Some friend you are,” Marco says, distracted by the car door, which doesn’t seem to be opening. He swears quietly, bangs the side of his body against it.

Ax is stepping up to help when the car door opens on Marco’s next tug.

“There we _go_ ,” Marco crows.

Possibly because Ax is still intoxicated- not enough to matter, but enough to put an edge on things- Ax says, < _I_ offered to help you with your homework. >

 “Yeah, but you’re also at a ultra-astrophysicist-scientist level, so you lost me a little bit whenever I took you up on it.”

<I did try to->

He does quiet when Marco pats his face. Both hands, the palms of them, clasp the sides of Ax’s face fleetingly before patting him twice.

“I know, man,” Marco says absently. His expression doesn’t even change during it, instead it stays tired and distracted and Marco’s looking away towards the steering wheel before his hands have properly left Ax’s face.

Ax’s cheeks tingle. He doesn’t think he’s blinking. Marco has done this, or something like this, exactly five times during their friendship.

Once he’d taken Ax’s face when he was in human morph to make sure he was looking where Marco wanted him to look- this was very early during their friendship and Ax had very nearly jerked away from it; he would’ve if he wasn’t so surprised. The next few times had been accidents- just one hand, mostly, as Marco helped Ax up and Ax nearly fell over and Marco’s hand had grazed the side of his face, that sort of thing- and the fourth time had been when Marco had wanted to be emphatic. He’d taken Ax’s face and spoken very slowly and firmly into Ax’s face and Ax had paused in the middle of their good-natured argument, momentarily dazed by the closeness of Marco’s face, the warmth of his palms, his fingers, against Ax’s cheeks.

Marco knows more about andalites than maybe any Animorph other than Tobias, but Ax is secretly glad Marco has never asked about the intricacies of andalite intimacy. That would likely mean Marco would stop and Ax wouldn’t get to keep these stolen moments.

The thought makes him swivel his eyestalks around fast to see Rachel and Cassie, both of whom are watching Ax. Rachel’s stopped and Cassie is in the middle of stumbling to a standstill. She looks surprised, but she still seems more in the realizing stage, her gaze saying _oh wait was that what I thought it was_ more than anything else.

Ax would have preferred to catch Rachel in that same stage. She’s seemed to blast right past it and is grinning in a way that feels a lot less bloodthirsty than her rare grins have been lately. This grin makes him think back to when Marco had ‘come out’ to everyone in the car days ago.

As he’s deciding how uncomfortable he is about this new development, Tobias rearranges his talons on Ax’s shoulder and Ax is reminded firmly of his presence.

Ah. Did he ever tell Tobias about that particular part of andalite intimacy? If so, would Tobias make the connection? That was- hardly a kiss, anyway. If he’d compare it to a human kiss he’d guess it would be akin to a few fleeting close-mouthed kisses on the lips.

Ax averts all his eyes and heads to the backseat. He climbs in and curls up, resting his torso against the seat. He closes his eyestalks and relies on his head-eyes to watch as everyone else climbs in the van and it pulls out of the parking lot.

There’s not much conversation. Everyone is, if not hungover, then slightly off, feeling achy or tender or just a bit more sensitive to light than usual. There remains to be not much conversation for almost an hour until Marco points at a gas station and asks if anyone wants food, since not everyone got fed on the vending machine run before, and when they get back Marco starts talking about the next item on their list: clubbing.

No one has clubbing clothes. This is, according to Rachel, who sounds more like her 13 year olds self than she has done since she was that age- a big deal.

Ax closes the rest of his eyes and listens distantly to the hum of the engine as it starts up again, and the lull of his friend’s voices even as they turn less lull-like and more harsh.

<Sooo.>

Ax doesn’t crack an eye open, but he does bump an eye stalk into Tobias, who is still perched on his shoulder, though now on a different section of it.

<If that is supposed to be the start of a conversation, you do not have a good grasp on your own language,> Ax tells him in private thought-speak.

<Thanks.> Tobias pecks very gently at his eye stalk. <The _soooo_ was in relation to Marco. And that thing that happened back there. The hand thing. >

<What hand thing,> Ax says after too long deciding whether to act casual about it or lie.

<Y’know what I really miss about being human? Humans can sigh. Ax, you do remember telling me about andalite-kissing, yeah?>

<Vaguely.>

<Okay. So.>

Ax squeezes his eyes shut tighter. In the seats ahead of them, Marco seems to be pointing out possible shops they could buy clothes in and Rachel is getting progressively more angry, but not bad angry, more laugh-angry.

<Diiiid you tell Marco about the kissing thing?>

Ax stays silent.

<I’m guessing not,> Tobias continues. <Otherwise he wouldn’t have done it in front of all of us.>

Ax snorts through his nose. He does admit that having a human mouth and therefore being capable of sighing would make him suitably more dramatic. <That was hardly a kiss. It _wasn’t_ a kiss, because kissing- requires intent. >

<Okay. But did it feel kiss-like to _you_? >

Ax pulls his arms in closer. <Obviously not.>

<Oh, _obviously_. ‘Cause you’re _so_ unaffected- >

<I’m sleeping,> Ax tells him.

Tobias doesn’t say anything, but Ax thinks if he had a human mouth he’d be laughing.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

They pull onto the side of the road and walk through a town that seems too small to be a town, honestly, and Rachel is silently grateful when they head into the lightless quiet of a secondhand clothes store.

She squeezes her eyes tight shut, then opens them. It takes a second for her eyes to adjust. She’s had her eyes adjust to a lot of things, but she’s gotten used to the adjusting being an adjustment to having six eyes instead of two, or having two eyes that don’t see colour, or having eyes that see impossibly further and better than her human eyes. Adjusting to the dim light of a store feels mundane in a way Rachel doesn’t know she likes.

She’s still shaking off her hangover. It’s midday and she thinks it should be over now. Right? She doesn’t exactly have experience with hangovers, but the movies-

She snorts to herself. Since when have movies been right about anything? In the past few years she’s found herself laughing at scenes where someone gets their guts torn out because they don’t react correctly or the guts are hilariously fake. Usually it’s the latter.

She walks close to Marco as he walks up and down the men’s section.

“How’re you feeling it,” she asks.

He looks at her and it’s very close to normal. “I’m fine. How’re _you_ , Xena?”

“Don’t.”

Marco blinks. The smile, which had been cautious at best, drops from his face.

Rachel backpedals. It just doesn’t fit, not here, not with the civilians walking past the store and the one inside and the one behind the desk-

“Right,” Marco says slowly. “Sorry?”

“It’s fine,” Rachel says, and turns away when Marco opens his mouth again, because it’s fine. She doesn’t want to talk about any reason why it wouldn’t fine.

She walks in between the aisles and touches the clothes: soft sleeves and tough hems, armpits, cuffs, the scoop of a neckline. Once she cared about this crap. She still does, but in a distant way: she cares about it but then there’s a voice that starts getting louder, asking why she’s bothering with any of this when she’s going to die soon, like the rest of the human race, blah blah.

 _We aren’t going to die_. Rachel grips the sleeve of a blue sweater. It’s nice. It’s soft and comfortable and would rest very nicely on all her angles. She’s lost weight since the war ended- she’s been trying to gain it back but mostly failing.

 _We’re not dying,_ Rachel tells herself again. _Humanity will continue and so will fashion. Didn’t you use to give a shit about this?_

She folds her fingers tighter into the sweater. It’s a very nice blue, it would suit her eyes. More than that, it’s soft. Isn’t that enough? It’s enough for Cassie, who prefers comfort over fashion, which is something Rachel always pitied and envied. How many times had she gone without a jacket while cold for the sake of fashion, or sweated her way through a day because her jacket was perfect with her outfit?

Rachel takes a few things into a changing room: the sweater, a crop top, some bell-bottom jeans because she’s always been able to make them look good, and a skirt with tassels. The last one is a dare that she hopes she’s going to win.

“Cassie,” she calls as she heads into the changing room. She makes it past the sheet of cloth before poking her head out and there’s Cassie, looking expectantly from several racks away. The rack is full of old man sweaters. Rachel is quietly grateful that she is still disgusted by them.

“Come and help me decide,” Rachel says. She ducks into the curtain and starts changing, first into the blue sweater.

It’s very soft. It reminds her weirdly of andalite fur, in the odd times that she’s felt Ax’s. He’s weird about it most of the time.

She emerges from the curtains and Cassie wisely gives a second of deliberation before nodding.

“Cool,” Rachel says, and steps back into the changing room, pulling the curtain shut in front of her. It strikes her as she does it: why should she? They’ve all seen her naked or close to it, except for the cashier who is helping out someone else at the other end of the store, which is at an angle that would make it impossible to see Rachel now.

Why does Rachel bother, then? Everyone else has seen her- if not naked, then close to it. If not naked, then worse: they’ve seen her breasts firming into exoskeleton, her belly growing fur, her legs thinning and splitting into multiples, her mouth growing too many teeth-

Rachel spins and faces the mirror. She looks very normal. She looks like Rachel expects herself to look like, but it feels wrong somehow.

She feels along her own arms and the hinges of her elbows. She flexes her shoulders up and down; then presses her fingers along the joints of other fingers; presses a thumb into her heartbeat at her wrist.

The heartbeat stays the same as she starts the slow slough into grizzly morph. _Horrible_ , is the Latin translation. She’d learned that in the last year of high school she’d attended. She hadn’t been paying attention and she knows for sure that ‘horrible’ isn’t the full translation but she does know it’s part of it, which is what matters.

 _Horrible_.

She strips the rest of her clothes off until she’s just in her underwear. She takes off her bra- she isn’t wearing her sports bra, which is what she used to wear for morphs in the last third of the war. It was tight enough. This isn’t. Instead she stares her naked chest in the mirror.

She keeps her fingers pressed into her wrist and starts to morph, watching herself in the mirror. Her nose bulges out and brings her mouth with it until it becomes a muzzle, and grows fur along her arms and ribs and nipples.

She stops when she’s about to form a bulge in the curtains _. What the fuck am I doing?_

Her breath is hot against the mirror. Her muzzle is pressed against it and forming hot clouds against the glass and suddenly she feels like the most ridiculous person alive- she wanted to feel right for a moment, but now she feel clunky and wrong, she’s in a fucking changing room and more than halfway into grizzly morph, Jesus Christ-

She morphs back quickly and braces her elbow against the mirror. She stares at herself. Her gaze is very close, like there is two of her. There was two of her once right- that starfish morph, the fucking starfish, the Good Rachel and the Bad Rachel who had to get shoved together again. How the fuck- how the _fuck_.

Nowadays Rachel keeps finding herself thinking that they didn’t put the Good Rachel back into her right. Or worse: they did, and this is just what she turned into naturally. This was always her. This, she thinks, is more realistic: she always had this violence, even if it used to be crouched in childhood or innocence or whatever it was covered in. She was twelve when all this started. God knows she had an excuse not to notice.

“Rach?” It’s Cassie.

Rachel startles against the mirror. She’s still leaning against it. She pushes herself back and looks down at the clothes on the ground. Right.

“One second,” she says. She bends and pulls on the sweater. Her breasts are small enough that she can’t tell she isn’t wearing a bra unless she looks close.

She turns and pulls back the curtain, where Cassie is talking to Jake, who is a few aisles away. Cassie stops when she notices Rachel.

“You look good,” she says. She even looks Rachel up and down, trying for a reassuring smile. “Maybe not for clubbing, though.”

“Right,” Rachel says. “Thanks.”

She pulls the curtain closed again. Then she picks up the crop top and the tasselled skirt and puts them on instead. The crop top flashes both the top and the bottom of her scars, but she ignores it: in the dark light of a club, they won't get noticed. Still, looking at them poking out from both ends of her shirt is unnerving. Lately she's been wearing tops that cover the whole of it up.

When she pulls the curtains open this time, she strikes a pose. It feels- if not more like herself, then like a version of it.

Cassie laughs. “That looks like more of a clubbing outfit.”

Rachel keeps on the smile until it feels more authentic. In another life, they could’ve done this closer to home. They could’ve gone out to clubs and it wouldn’t have any of the weight it has now, with all the blood and genocide and war crimes and what the fuck ever.

She watches herself in the mirror as she pulls the curtain again. In her crop top and tassel skirt she looks like a normal teenager. Which is what they want out of this roadtrip, right? At least it’s what Marco has been wanting, and shades of the rest of them. Tobias, probably, has given up.

She casts a look at him after she’s dressed in her old clothes and is out from behind the changing room curtains: he’s letting Marco drag him around. Marco keeps pointing at things and from the expression on his face, Rachel guesses he’s telling Tobias that he’d look good in the clothes Marco is gesturing towards.

Her chest twists at the sight. Tobias’ face is as blank as usual, because he’s mostly forgotten how to use facial expressions. They’re all used to it but it still hurts Rachel in a distant way, which is how most things hurt nowadays-

Someone touches her shoulder.

Rachel twists around, hand jerking backwards in a motion that would end in death if she was a grizzly and her paw was poised to come down and kill-

Ax stares at her. He’s in human morph and somehow has more human expressions than Tobias, and he watches her hand where it’s pulled back behind her, ready to come down. She hasn’t grown fur or claws yet- again, anyway.

She drops it to her side. Ax doesn’t say anything but his eyes follow her hand before dragging up to her face.

How hard is it, she wonders, to suddenly have two eyes after living a life with four? She’s never asked him. Why hasn’t she ever asked? She’s known Ax since she was 12 years old. Why hasn’t she asked?

“Cassie wants your attention,” Ax says.

Rachel blinks. Swallows. “Yeah?” She looks over to where Ax nods and yes, there’s Cassie looking cautious over by a rack of shirts that look like they could be Rachel’s colour. Rachel wishes she could care more about what her colour is.

“Thanks,” Rachel says.

Ax shrugs. It’s jerky like all of Ax’s shrugs, like he’s still working on how shrugs operate. Andalites shrug, Rachel has learned, but they shrug without using their shoulders- they use eyestalks or whatever. It’s been an adjustment Rachel has never bothered to learn. She doesn’t know a lot about andalites- nothing about their culture. Culture _s_. There must be more than one, right? Earth is small but it has so many cultures Rachel can’t count them.

“Hey,” Rachel says, and it’s late enough that Ax has almost turned away. “You guys- andalites- have different cultures, right?”

Ax stares at her some more. Rachel thinks he would be licking his lips if he was used to that nervous tic. As it is, he just clenches his hands by his sides and looks absently weirded out by the number of fingers despite the fact he could be used to it by now.

“Yes,” he says, oddly unsure.

Rachel nods. “Cool,” she says, and thinks about asking more about it. Instead she walks past him and butts their shoulders together as she does, and heads towards Cassie, who is now looking at them both in bewilderment.

She’s still getting that bewildered look when she reaches Cassie.

“What was that about,” Cassie asks.

Rachel shrugs. She pays a lot of attention to how her shoulder shift. “Just asked him about andalite stuff.”

“Andalite-” Cassie eyes her. “You didn’t,” she starts, and lowers her voice, looking around the store like they aren’t the only people in here. “You didn’t ask him more andalite sex questions?”

Rachel feels herself grin. “No, Cassie, I didn’t ask him any _andalite sex questions_. How dare you suggest that.”

Cassie’s starts to grin too, and Rachel gets a powerful rush of what it was like when she could make people smile just by smiling hard at them, back before she turned herself into sharp edges.

She thinks must’ve been nice, once.

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

They drink before heading into the club for the night.

This is mostly agreed to because everyone has worked off their hangovers by this point. Still, everyone but Marco is dubious about drinking again.

“You’ll be fine,” Marco assures everyone. Then when they all give him a pointed look: “Seriously! You’ll be _fine_. Just, y’know, take it easy tonight.”

Which they do, apart from Rachel. Which is par for the course at this point- of course Rachel will go overboard. Rachel is surprised they give a shit even as she gets drunker, at which point surprise is overtaken by a calm kind of fun she’s only ever caught glimpses of in the depths of battle.

Before they’re about to head out, Rachel changes outfits in the bathroom and catches herself in the mirror. She touches the glass, which is also her cheek. It’s smooth and breakable; glass and skin both.

“I understand why people become alcoholics,” she says. She laughs after it, even though it carries something heavy she doesn’t want to look at closely.

Then she heads out into the motel lounge. She’s wearing her tasselled skirt and the crop top she’d brought for less than five bucks at the secondhand store. She swivels on the spot so the tassels twist around her.

Jake notices her first. He’s busy nodding in awkward approval before Marco notices, and then everyone else in a landslide.

Rachel twirls around on the spot. This, she thinks, would have been her first party appearance in another life. But it isn’t another life, it’s this one, and she holds her head high as she heads out to the parking lot with everyone else.

Marco explains how they’re walking, because he doesn’t want to be a designed driver, and Rachel finds herself quietly thinking how sensible it is before Jake is halfheartedly ragging on Marco for driving into all those garbage bins that one time.

“That was an emergency,” Marco tells him. “I’d like to see you try.”

“I’d rather not,” Jake says, which sets Marco off on another tirade.

Rachel watches them. It’s comforting to see them bicker. It feels natural when nothing else does.

They end up walking to the club, because it isn’t very far and it’s a nice night.

As they walk, Rachel shoots a glance over at Tobias, who is in an older human morph than his natural- than his _usual_ human self- with his watch already set. He stays in it and is very quiet while they walk to the club.

He stands back when everyone crowd into an alley to morph into older adults.

Rachel still finds it hilarious: they’ve killed people, they’ve killed aliens, but they can’t get a drink?

She morphs into an old lady anyway, with white hair and stooped shoulders. When everyone is fully morphed, none of them recognizable.

Rachel wets her cracked, old lips. “Let’s do it!”

It comes out croaky and weak, but it gets a shocked laugh from everyone. Marco- who is now a fifty-something man- even cheers out loud.

The bouncer’s eyebrow hit his forehead when he notices them all walk up- a ragtag group of middle-aged men, a woman in her fifties and another with at least a decade on that, all of them wearing clothes made for clubbing.

Rachel can feel her morph’s breasts bulging out the sides of her bra. It doesn’t feel great and she expects it doesn’t look great either.

“Oookay,” the bouncer says eventually, stepping aside and eyeing them one by one as they pass. Rachel sees Cassie shoot the guy a smile that Rachel recognizes as ‘nothing illegal is going on here, nope, absolutely no illegal activities at all.’

“This was a bad plan,” someone says. She thinks it’s Jake, but it might be Marco.

Then he continues, “This is one of the worst ideas you’ve had, wow,” and the man next to him says, “This was a great plan, shut up, I have great plans,” and Rachel is suddenly sure that the first guy is Jake and the second is definitely Marco.

Inside the club, it’s hot at loud and the kind of bright that Rachel has to squint at for a second. It’s crowded enough that it still sets Rachel on edge even with the booze.

“Bathroom,” she says when she spots it, and points.

They all head in the direction of her finger. Rachel grins at everyone who’s giving her a serious side-eye as she closes herself in a stall next to Cassie and demorphs. She sighs in relief as her breasts return to their usual puny size- that had been uncomfortable as hell and she didn’t think her bra could’ve held up much longer. Her bra isn’t made for doing much else but covering her nipples.

She opens the stall and walks over to lean on the wall, avoiding the mirror- the bathroom is too well lit for her liking, which means her scars are clearly visible above and below her crop top. She raises her hand to adjust it but drops it without touching either her scar or her top: there's no way to adjust it that would hide the scars. She'll just have to stare determinedly away from the mirror and wait to go back out into the dark club.

It takes another thirty seconds before Cassie comes out- her clothes, like Rachel’s fit a lot better on her that they did on her older morph. She’s wearing a crop top as well, with cheap lace that’s the only thing covering her stomach. Rachel is still surprised she agreed to buy it and from the look on Cassie’ s face, she’s having second thoughts.

“Nope, can’t back out now,” Rachel says when Cassie opens her mouth.

Cassie makes a face down at her lace-clad stomach. “I just- I don’t think I can pull this off. I don’t have the-”

She trails off and gestures towards Rachel, who moves out of the way of someone trying to get to the sink.

“Malnourished look?” Rachel grins again when Cassie opens her mouth and then tilts her head consideringly at Rachel: she used to have the gymnast look, strong and sleek. Nowadays her thinness is more of a worry than anything else.

Rachel grabs Cassie by the shoulders and tries not to look too closely at Cassie’s pleased surprise: booze makes Rachel more amenable to touching people without wanting to hit them, apparently.

“Cassie,” Rachel says. “You. Are. _Hot_. And you’re finally showing it off. This shirt is a good thing. This shirt is flattering. This shirt loves you.” _What am I even saying?_

But it gets the regret off Cassie’s face, at least until she looks down to the skirt she’s wearing.

Rachel snorts. “It goes down to your knees, it’s fine.”

“It’s very- um, form-fitting-”

“Yeah, that’s a good thing.” Rachel digs around in her purse and brings out the small plastic bottle of vodka they had all taken swigs out of as they had all stood nervously in the alley, freshly morphed. She takes a swallow, supresses the urge to spit it out, and then tilts it towards Cassie.

Cassie shakes her head. “No way, not without chasers. I don’t know how you can drink that raw.”

“ _Raw_?” Rachel laughs. For a moment she gets what the big deal is with Marco’s whole thing, the thing he’d talked about at length when they were drunk last night: if they ignored some key features like having to demorph in the bathroom, this could be a snapshot of the life they could’ve had: Rachel talking Cassie out of regretting her clubbing clothes, Rachel and Cassie punch-drunk and underage in the bathroom of a club.

Rachel grabs Cassie’s hand. “Come on, let’s go dance! Come onnn, it’s what you do at clubs, it’s a teenage experience, you said you’d do it with me!”

Cassie grumbles, but she’s smiling as Rachel drags her out of the bathroom. There’s a brief moment where she wonders where the hell to put her bag, but then she sees a pile of bags and jackets in the corner and heads over to it after checking that she doesn’t have anything in the purse worth stealing apart from the booze.

Then Rachel leads Cassie onto the dancefloor. She sticks to the edges, because there’s no way in hell she wants to get in the middle of all those sweaty, grinding people.

Behind her, Cassie says something. She’s holding Rachel’s hand hard like a kid clinging to their mom in a busy mall.

“What?”

Cassie leans in close to her ear. “I think I see Marco and Jake!”

“Cool,” Rachel yells back, and starts to dance, or some variation thereof. Whatever it is, it’s the same kind of dance that everyone else seems to be doing, which seems to be along the lines of: everyone’s fucking wasted and no one cares what they look like, which suits Rachel fine.

Cassie stands hesitantly even as Rachel shakes their clasped hands and moves Cassie’s arm up and down coaxingly.

“Dancing means you have to dance,” Rachel yells, which makes maybe half the amount of sense that she wants it to, but whatever.

She’s opening her mouth to say something else convincing when a song ends and the start of another song begins to thud through the club and Rachel has to gasp and stop. Other people in the club seem to have the same idea; a series of whoops run through the crowd in anticipation.

Rachel starts slapping Cassie on the arm.

“It’s this song, it’s this-” Rachel hisses air through her teeth and, along with most of the club, starts belting out, “NOW THAT YOU’RE OUT OF MY LIFE I’M SO MUCH BETTER, YOU THOUGHT I’D BE WEAK WITHOUT YOU BUT I’M STRONGER-”

Cassie’s laughing and Rachel can hardly hear it over the music- which is loud enough to hurt- and the other partygoers who are screaming the lyrics.

She stumbles over the next few words, because it’s been a while since she’s listened to Destiny’s Child on purpose, but she does grab both of Cassie’s hands for the chorus and then they’re both yelling into each other’s faces about being a survivor, about not givin’ up and workin’ harder and keepin’ survivin’.

It’s enough, finally, to get Cassie dancing, albeit self-consciously, but Rachel cheers anyway. The cheer turns into a greeting yell when someone bumps into her and it turns out be Marco, who is yelling the lyrics with the same fervour as everyone else, and Jake, who is missing most of the right words but is trying anyway.

Sometime during the song Rachel’s bathroom bottle-swig kicks in and the next hour or so gets a bit wonky.

Dancing- or, drunk-dancing, to be exact, which feels a lot more freeing and loose and illicit than regular dancing- is a new flavour of excitement that Rachel didn’t think she could feel outside of a killing frenzy. It’s a strange, pure kind of fun that narrows the world down to the song and the atmosphere and her limbs moving, and Rachel feels invincible as she screams lyrics at the ceiling.

Eventually the urge to pee happens during a song she doesn’t know and she works her way through the crowd to the bathroom. Everything, she has decided, is more fun or at least more interesting while drunk: pulling up her dress and sitting on a toilet seat makes her giggle. Her skin tingles just a little bit and there’s a warm thrum in her.

She pees while resting her head against the stall wall. When she gets out and looks in the bathroom mirror she has to take a second to cock her head at her reflection: yes, that is her, flushed and rumpled and smiling. She looks like any other girl on a night out with her friends.

The idea curdles slightly in her stomach but then it’s slipped out of her head and Rachel doesn’t bother trying to hold onto it. Instead she heads out of the bathroom and is about to head back to the dancefloor when she catches a glimpse of Ax standing outside in the smoking area.

He’s staring up at the sky and startles when she sidles up to him and bumps their shoulders together violently.

“Oh. Hello,” Ax says, and his polite smile turns genuine when he takes her in. “You are having fun.”

“I _am_!” Rachel beams. “You are _not_.”

“Humans are strange,” Ax says. He peers past her into the club and Rachel turns around to do the same: inside, people are laughing and dancing and drinking and grinding.

“We are,” Rachel agrees. “Hey, you see Tobias anywhere?”

“I think he went back into the hawk and flew up to the roof.”

Rachel sighs. Yeah, sounds like him. “Whatevs. Want to come dance? It’s fun.”

“Walking on two legs is hard enough when I’m not inebriated,” Ax says with a sigh, looking down at said legs. Then he says, “Ineeeebriated,” moving his mouth very slowly around each syllable.

“Whatevs,” Rachel says. She gives his cheek a tiny slap. “Kiss kiss,” she says, and then heads back inside.

This time she’s sidetracked by Marco, who is in the middle of heading outside, presumably to see Ax. She almost collides with him before she notices it’s him.

“Hey!”

“Hi,” Marco yells back, and for some reason Rachel grabs his arms and Marco does the same to her. “Feeling good?”

“Yep yep yep yep.” Rachel burps. “You?”

“Yeah! I got a drink at the bar and no one asked for my ID ‘cause I’m already in here, it was awesome, you look awesome, we should do this again sometime!”

“YES,” Rachel yells, and goes to squeeze his cheeks like a grandma before gasping, “You andalite-kissed Ax before,” and then dissolving into laughter.

“What,” Marco yells in her ear. “What, when did I- last night? Oh shit did I kiss him last night when I was drunk? I don’t think I blacked anything out I wasn’t that drunk-”

“No no no no this morning when you did this,” Rachel says. Then she strokes Marco’s cheeks, frowning when her thumb catches on his chin. “Hey, do you _shave_ now?”

“Yeah,” Marco says, distracted. He’s suddenly paler than before, but Rachel can’t see the extent under the strobe lights. “ _That’s_ andalite kissing? Cheek-stroking?”

“Yup.”

“Oh _fuck_.”

 Rachel watches him freak out for a few seconds before grabbing his hand. “Back to dancing!”

Marco starts to protest, but she drags him back into the crowd without him shaking her off, so she thinks it’s okay. Rachel settles back into the dancing and feels the elasticity of her limbs, how they move smooth and sweaty under her clothes. She doesn’t even care that she’s surrounded by people who are potential threats, because she’s in a narrow world where just the dancing matters, the dancing and the communal sense of _everyone’s having a great fucking night_ as people sing along to the music thumping through the floor.

Rachel dances and it’s fun, it’s fine, she’s being a normal girl on the tail end of her teens; she dances and gets jostled and doesn’t flinch; she stumbles over to her purse and drinks some more and then heads back into the dancefloor and gives herself over.

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

Rachel isn’t sure how long it’s been when she has to head to the bathroom and put her face under a tap and drink until she feels less like she’s sweating her last remaining bodily fluids through her clothes.

At this point the world doesn’t stay stable when she stays still, which is fine, because she’s not staying still. She keeps herself moving and if the floor wobbles a bit when she walks then it’s fine, it’s whatever, she’s having a good time.

She keeps having a good time right until she’s in the middle of the dancefloor. People are looking at her, checking her out, and it’s fine because Rachel has always been attractive so she’s used to it. Some guys- some girls, even- try to come and dance with her but Rachel moves away like she’s been doing all night, because she wants to be alone and dance, and she’s not sure when she started wanting to be alone but she definitely wants it. She hasn’t been sure where any of her friends are for a while now but every now and again she’ll catch glimpses of them through the crowd and most of them seem like they’re still having fun.

When a guy comes up behind Rachel and tries to grind on her, she turns around and says, “Nope,” and then starts to move away.

He grabs her elbow. His mouth is moving but Rachel can’t hear what he’s saying.

“Fuck off,” she tells him, and this time he raises his voice enough that she can hear him say, “Come on, am I not good enough,” and then something else that gets lost to the booming bassline that starts up.

His hand is loose around her arm but it tightens when she tries to shake him off.

“Fuck OFF,” Rachel snarls.

He’s still talking, refusing to let go, and his gaze is the kind of vacant and distantly offended that means he’s even more wasted than she is. She catches snippets of bullshit words and this time she grabs his hand and moves it forcibly off of her.

Then he’s saying something like _ow, shit, what was that for_ , and Rachel doesn’t move away this time. _He’s_ being the asshole, _he_ has to leave.

He’s standing very close. She’d be able to feel his breath if she paid attention but it’s hard to concentrate with all the music and the sea of people around her.

He comes even closer and it’s very easy to do it, because everyone’s close, everyone’s bumping into each other as they dance, and now he’s pressing into Rachel all down her front. He has muscles in his torso and an erection through his jeans that’s rubbing on Rachel’s hip.

It could be the erection that sets her off. But if Rachel’s honest with herself, she knows that it’s because the illusion is broken: she’s no longer carefree and dancing, no longer the kind of girl who can stand in a throng of constantly moving people and not get nervous. The old Rachel, the damaged version she’s turned into, comes flooding back into her like a punch.

She acts on instinct: she puts her hands up against his chest and shoves. The guy knocks backwards into a few people and when he falls clumsily to the ground more than one person gets caught in the crossfire, either stumbling or taking a fall with an ease that wouldn’t come without having one too many first.

And then people are saying things to her, some girls and some guys, some concerned, but mostly pissed off or confused, and Rachel can’t hear most of them over the music, which is suddenly making her head pound. The guy she’d pushed over is having trouble getting himself to his feet.

“Fuck,” Rachel says, and she closes her eyes to give the world a second to stop lurching whenever she moves.

As her eyes close someone behind her puts a hand on her back, and Rachel’s eyes are wrenching open without her having to tell them to, and it’s in this same way that she whirls around and lashes out with her hand.

It’s not even a punch, it’s more of a hard slap- or a claw, because she ends up gouging thin lines in the cheek of a girl who shrieks loud enough to get heard over the music and then reels back.

Everyone around Rachel is looking now, even if most of them are still just noticing and are taking a few drunken seconds to process, but Rachel starts to stumble away before they can do anything. She pushes her way through the crowd and snarls at anyone who says anything about it and it isn’t until she’s finally, mercifully out of the crowd that she hears someone say, “Holy shit, it’s Rachel Berenson!”

Rachel freezes. It had been said in the momentary lapse between songs, and the club is still loud enough with chatter that not even a third of the people would be able to hear, but it does get people’s attention.

As Rachel stands, unable to make herself move, she watches someone point at her and start hitting the person next to them on the shoulder. Then someone close them starts gesturing towards her, and Rachel watches their mouth move and wonders what they’re saying- details about the war have been released to the public, not much but enough to get the vague outline of who the Animorphs are as people.

Everyone knows Rachel Berenson is the fucking wild card.

One of the people who had been gesturing towards her walks up and she watches them with nerves that rachet higher with every step.

It’s a girl. Older than her, but not by much. She has fake eyelashes and a very short dress and she’s touching Rachel’s shoulder. She’s asking if she could get an autograph and also a photo and is it true she really killed all those Yeerks that one time-

 _More than once_ , Rachel thinks. Out loud, she says, “Fuck off.”

The girl blinks. It seems to take a second to sink in and when it does she doesn’t say anything.

Rachel pushes her hand away. “I don’t-” Rachel’s breath comes fast and hard through her teeth. She needs to get out of here. She needs to get out of this fragile fucking human body. She needs solitude and quiet and some space to breathe-

“But you’re her, right,” the girl asks. “You’re Rachel-”

“Get out of my way,” Rachel snaps at her, and when she doesn’t, Rachel starts walking and knocks her bodily out of her path just in time for a hand to close on her shoulder.

Fuck. What is it with everyone _touching_ her-

She turns around and it’s the bouncer and there’s a girl behind him with a bleeding cheek. Right, she had clawed some poor girl. God.

“This woman says you attacked her,” the bouncer says. His expression is very stern. He reminds Rachel of a principal- not Chapman, but Chapman-esque, which gets her thinking about Yeerks and also Melissa. Where was Melissa nowadays anyway?

“Miss, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

Rachel wets her lips. They’re very dry.

“Miss?”

He’s still touching her arm.

“Take your hand off me,” Rachel mumbles.

“What?”

“I said-” Rachel takes a thin breath and then something in her, something that felt old but really had only been growing for a few years, snaps.

“I said take your _fucking hand off me_ ,” she says, and grabs him by the throat, walking him several steps backwards and shoving him into the bar. She only manages it because he’s so damn surprised, but when his head hits the bar and narrowly misses shattering a shot glass, he twists out of her grip.

He tries to grab her hands. She knees him hard in the stomach, jolting a noise out of him.

Rachel laughs. “You think you can win against _me_ ,” she snarls, and it’s really a snarl, all teeth. “You think you can fucking-”

He throws a punch and it catches her on the side of the face. As she careens sideways, stars blooming in her vision, she wonders if he’s allowed to do that as a bouncer.

She rights herself just as he’s approaching, saying something that is supposed to sound placating but comes across as irritated: _Now come on don’t make me hurt you more-_

Surely that’s not what he was trained to say. Do bouncers get training?

Rachel bares her teeth. There are a lot of things around she could use to hurt the guy more. She could bring that shot glass down on the guy’s nose, listen to it crack, but she really wants to do this just with her hands-

It’s then that she realizes that people are starting to scream. When she looks into the bouncer’s face, it’s slack with surprise. Then it tightens into terror and some kind of awe, but not the soft kind.

“Oh god oh shit,” the bouncer says, very fast and strangely unattached, like he thinks this is a bizarre dream.

The screaming is dying down but in its place is a horrified silence that beats under the music, which is still deafening.

Rachel looks down. Oh. Her nails have hardened into claws. Her hands, in turn, have started bulging into paws, and when she looks down more she sees her shoes, which have claws sticking out of them, and her arms are still growing fur, and she watches her nose sprout out in front of her eyes, the tip of it turning black-

“What the fuck are you DOING,” says a familiar voice close to her, and Rachel looks to the side to see Jake rushing towards her, stopping before he actually touches her. “Rachel-”

“Shut the fuck up,” Rachel says, and it comes out slurred. Her teeth stop turning to needles and her tongue starts shrinking back to its usual size, like her hands, and Rachel squeezes her eyes tight shut and feels the fur suck back into her skin and imagines that it’s still there, just dormant, waiting for Rachel to shed her human self and come back to the grizzly-

Someone else says her name. She thinks it’s Cassie. More people are talking but none of them are familiar and there’s the snap of a camera.

Jake swears. “We need to go.”

 _I’m sorry_. Rachel bites it down and opens her eyes. People are still staring at her with that same horror even as Cassie pushes back into the crowd to find the others.

Rachel looks towards the girl who had asked for her autograph. She’s standing next to the girl with the slashed cheek and her eyes are very wide. Her lips are curled back in what almost looks like revulsion.

Rachel tries to make herself breathe normally.

This isn’t the war. Her savagery is no longer accepted. When people look at her they don’t see how she is a necessary thing, because she isn’t anymore. This isn’t wartime, this is a club full of civilians who are staring at her in horror. Like she’s a monster. Like they see all the bloody things she’s done, all the times she’s grinned with blood in her teeth- blunt and human or sharp and grizzly.

Suddenly Rachel wants to hide in the comforting weight of the grizzly morph, the familiar brutality of it, the knowledge that she can get hurt but she can hurt them even more.

She grinds her teeth together in her mouth, her useless teeth that can’t even rip through some cuts of cooked meat on their own; her human teeth that don’t feel right. Rachel is a wild fucking animal. This body is all sinew and breakable bones. She wants to be in a form that suits her.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

They’re most of the way home when Tobias says the first thing any of them have said since leaving the club: <You’re bleeding.>

Rachel looks over at him. He’s perched on Marco’s shoulder. He hadn’t bothered morphing back to human when Ax had got him down from the roof.

Rachel looks down to where Tobias gestures with his beak. Huh. There’s a deep scratch along her right arm. When the hell had she gotten that?

She rubs her fingers over it. The blood hasn’t even dried yet and her fingers come away a smudgy red.

“That’ll need stitches,” Cassie tells her.

Rachel prods at it. The pain is duller than it should be. “Cassie.”

“Yes?”

“Could you stitch me up?”

Cassie pauses. _You could just morph and then morph back_ is written all over her face, but Rachel cuts it off before she can voice it: “I want the scar.”

Cassie’s lips purse. But all she says is, “Okay,” and that’s the last thing anyone says until they reach the motel their van is parked in and start peeling off into separate rooms: Cassie-Rachel-Ax and Jake-Tobias-Marco, just like last time.

Rachel waits in the bathroom as Cassie boils a needle. She sits on the edge of the tub and smears some more blood down her arm. There’s quite a lot of it. A fuzzy memory of science class strikes her: alcohol thins the blood, right? So there’d be more of it if she got cut?

“Why did you even bring a first aid kit,” she asks when Cassie returns with the needle.

Cassie bends down to get some more shit out of the kit- wraparound bandages, something to secure them with. “For emergencies just like this?”

Rachel snorts. They had all started regarding that sort of thing- band-aids and the like- as irrelevant after about eight months of demorphing bullet wounds and broken bones away. Rachel can remember one time when they were fourteen Cassie had cut her knee open badly on a shovel. Her dad had seen it and had been very confused at their nonplussed reactions.

The needle glints in Cassie’s fingers. She sits on the closed toilet lid and takes Rachel’s arm. Her grip is gentle and firm and Rachel wonders if she really is thinking of going into medicine.

She thinks about asking, but an insurmountable weariness has been closing in on her ever since the adrenaline worked its way out of her system. She’s still drunk and the last glass of water Cassie had given her sits untouched on the sink.

Cassie doesn’t bother telling Rachel to brace herself. Instead she sews Rachel up in careful, even movements and then wraps it with a bandage.

“All done,” she announces once it’s finished. She starts to get up, but Rachel grabs her wrist.

Her throat works. Cassie’s eyes are too damn understanding as she waits in silence.

“Thank you,” Rachel finally manages.

Cassie nods. “Of course,” she says, and when she smiles it’s not entirely sad. “Always.”

Rachel swallows. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, Rach.” Another smile, though this one flinches across her face instead of sticking around.

Rachel squeezes her wrist. Lovely, reliable Cassie who is trustworthy to a point and even then-

 _No_ , Rachel tells herself _. Come on. Everyone did dubious shit during the war. How the fuck can you judge her?_

Cassie sits back down on the closed toilet. She’s still waiting for Rachel to speak even though Rachel doesn’t know what the hell she wants to say.

“I don’t know how to go back,” is what ends up coming out. “I don’t- I turned myself into something in the war, and now it’s over and I can’t be that anymore, but I don’t know how to be anything else now.”

“None of us do,” Cassie starts, but Rachel cuts her off.

“But you turned yourself into something you can still-” she drags in a shaky breath. “Still _be_ , now. I don’t know how to be, without the war. What the hell am I without it?”

It’s only when something so small it could be nonexistant loosens in her chest that she realizes it’s the first time she’s actually said it out loud.

Cassie turns over the hand that Rachel has by the wrist until she has Rachel’s hand in hers.

“You’re still Rachel,” she says. She presses her thumb into Rachel’s palm as if to say, _see?_

Rachel feels herself shake her head. “When we went shopping today I got halfway to grizzly morph in the changing rooms. I don’t know why. I just- I was looking at my reflection and it was wrong. Soft.”

Cassie’s eyebrows are pulled in. She keeps looking at Rachel with those big brown eyes and Rachel suddenly can’t reconcile those eyes with the eyes of the wolf that had ripped out the throats of too many Controllers to count.

“I’m not Rachel anymore,” Rachel says.

“You are,” Cassie says. Her thumb presses harder into Rachel’s palm. “You’re just- the new version.”

“Yeah, well. This new Rachel doesn’t know how to function when she isn’t getting sent off to battle.”

Cassie doesn’t seem to know what to say to that. Rachel doesn’t blame her. They sit there in the tiny bathroom that looks oddly like the one in their last motel, down to the mould stains.

Finally Cassie says, “You’re gonna be okay, Rach.”

Rachel doesn’t reply. She is awash with all the memories of bloodlust and instead of getting a leftover spike of nerves all she feels is empty.

Cassie tries again. “You have the rest of your life to figure things out.”

Jesus. The thought of it is enough to pull Rachel back to her body, where the lip of the bathtub is hard against her ass and her feet are bare and cold on the floor and Cassie’s hand is very warm over hers.

The rest of her life. She had been so sad to have that go away in that last battle when she had thought she was going to die. Now-

“Yeah,” Rachel says. “Yeah.”

They sit there for a long time. Eventually the cold works its way further into Rachel, making her shiver, and Cassie says they should head for bed. She makes an aborted movement like she was going to hug Rachel but then thought better of it, and Rachel isn’t sure if she’s pleased by that or not.

Ax is waiting with bedsheets when they get out of the bathroom, and he seems very grateful to get to sling them in the tub and climb in.

Rachel thinks about apologizing for taking so long. Instead she climbs into bed and slides down under the covers, pulling them tight over her body. The bed is so small her toes hang off the end, but she still doesn’t feel big enough.

She doesn’t feel strong. She used to have it, that easy strength- it lived in her body back when she had muscled arms and strong, toned thighs. Now all of her is thin and waiflike, as if she’s fading away, and it’s only the phantom press of Cassie’s thumb in one of her palms that has her feel anything close to solid.

She turns on her side and it stings. She’s lying on the cut. She sneaks a hand onto that place on her arm where the bandage is, and presses gently. It will scar, she’s sure of it- she has the scars on her chest from the end of the war and now she will have this. It won’t fade with her morphs, instead it will sit on her arm and provide the memory of being a monster and Rachel will run her fingers over it when she needs to remember all those people looking at her in horror.

 _Don’t be that_ , Rachel thinks as she presses softly against the bandage. _Be-_

But she can’t come up with an answer of what to be, so she has to settle with _be something else_.


	7. Chapter 7

Cassie wakes up before dawn with a stomach ache. It invades her dream: she’s in the middle of filing Hork Bajir talons to blunt nubs, which feels very important at the time, and then her stomach is twisting and she falls to her knees and suddenly she’s in bed.

She blinks the last vestiges of the dream away, distantly glad at getting to leave it. The Hork Bajir were never-ending, there would always be talons to file into stumps, and they had started getting upset about it.

 _I need to do this_ , Cassie kept telling them. _Let me do this_. Some of them settled, but every new one she moved onto became more unruly.

As she curls up in bed, hugging her knees to her stomach, she thinks she should have tried explaining why it was so necessary, but as she thinks it she realizes she doesn’t have a reason. It was just one of those things in dreams that made sense at the time.

She climbs gingerly out of bed and heads over to her bag, reaching in to scrape around the bottom of it. She’s sure she had- there.

She pulls out a nut bar that had looked like the healthiest option available and starts unwrapping it only to have it crinkle impossibly loud in the otherwise silent room. She casts a look over at Rachel, who is dead to the world-

The phrase that passes through her mind makes something clench up in Cassie’s stomach in a way that has nothing to do with sickness. She doesn’t want to think about Rachel being dead to the word in any sense.

Still, Rachel is silent and unmoving in bed. Cassie has to watch her close to see her chest rise and fall with breath. She’s lying on her back and has thrown most of the blankets off during the night so only her feet and calves are covered by it. She hadn’t bothered getting into her sleep clothes last night, just stripped off her shirt and skirt and climbed into bed in her underwear.

For the first time, Cassie gets a clear look at the scars the polar bear had given her in the very last battle. She’d glimpsed them in the nightclub yesterday, but she didn’t want to look too long in case Rachel snapped out of the grin she’d had on.

The scars start at the base of Rachel’s neck and end below her bra. Cassie doesn’t know why those scars stayed, after all the scar fodder they got during the war, but she can guess: those scars marked the end of the war, the end of Rachel The Weapon being necessary. Rachel had nearly died and she thought she was going to die as the sharp thing she turned herself into, and now she had the scars to remind her.

Cassie’s gaze drifts from one scar to a to-be scar, which now sits under a bandage on Rachel’s arm.

 _I want the scar_ , Rachel had told her, and her eyes had some of that fire that they didn’t see much of anymore.

Half of Cassie hopes she gets it. The other half wants Rachel to stay smooth and familiar, effortlessly flawless. The scars are building up and they make Rachel look older, more damaged. Both halves of Cassie want, perhaps childishly, to curl around her and bite the throats out of anything that tries to give her anymore scars, but she knows it’s futile. The destruction isn’t something they can fight off. It lives inside Rachel and they can’t dig it out, can’t soothe it, they just have to- what? Wait for Rachel to snap out of it? Try to shake it out of her themselves? Provide an alternative to the violence that had been brewing and exploding out of Rachel for years?

 _We are_ , Cassie thinks, _uniquely unqualified to deal with this_. Which is true of all of it, the whole fucking war, but at least when they were fighting they didn’t have time to fall apart. Cassie feels strangely more unequipped to deal with the aftermath of the war than she often felt about the war itself.

Her stomach riles and she winces, putting a hand to it.

She heads outside into the near-darkness and sits in the parking lot with her back up against a big metal bin. The nut bar is bland without all the chocolates and additives that were in all the other bars available, but Cassie stodgily chews her way through it. Halfway through the bar her stomach starts to settle, which feels promising, so Cassie sits and waits for a while after she’s finished the whole thing.

As her stomach calms, the sun rises. Cassie squints up at the sky. It’s going to be a beautiful day, and something about that fact, paired with the birdsong that is the only thing puncturing the otherwise silent morning, makes a slow kind of contentment fill Cassie up to her fingertips.

She goes back inside to fetch her book that will be required reading for her first medical course, and then reads it on the asphalt of the parking lot as the sun gets higher in the sky. She won’t actually get into med school for years and years, but she feels like she should get a head start.

Around an hour passes before a door opens at the motel. Cassie looks up to see Marco looking blearily down at her from the doorway.

She waves. He waves back, but in a way that means he’d be saying something sarcastic if his brain would catch up with him.

“Early,” is all he comes out with, rubbing his knuckles into his closed eyes. “Too early. Why’re you up?”

“I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep,” Cassie says, which isn’t entirely a lie. “Hey, Marco?”

“Mm.”

“Do you think you could give me a driving lesson sometime?”

Marco drops his hands back to his sides. His eyelids are puffy and Cassie tries to remember if that’s a hangover symptom. Then she thinks about his hands clasping Ax’s face so casually yesterday and whether or not Marco knows what that means. Surely not- Marco jokes around a lot, sure, but he wouldn’t toy with Ax’s feelings. On purpose, anyway.

“Uh,” Marco says. “Sure. Sometime. Like on this trip, or?”

Cassie shrugs. “If we get the time. We can meet up afterwards, though.”

She watches as the idea of future plans solidify in his head. She guesses he doesn’t want another several months of radio silence from everyone after the trip is over.

 “Sounds good,” Marco says, and he’s smiling but his gaze is almost suspicious. Both the smile and the suspiciousness are slight, almost nonexistant, but there.

He leans against the doorway. “Looks like a fun read,” he says, nodding down at the thick book in her hands.

“Fun isn’t the right word,” Cassie says. “But it is interesting.”

“Well, as long as it’s-” Marco pauses to yawn, his jaw cracking around it. “Interesting. Jesus. It’s too early. I’m going back to bed. See ya in a few hours.”

“See you,” Cassie says. She watches the door close and then rubs her bare feet on the concrete which is, slowly but surely, warming up in the sun.

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

Human technology remains laughable. Still, as Ax sets up the laptop he’s painstakingly configured to contact his homeworld, he finds he’s grown attached to it. It’s clunky and primitive, but nowadays it’s familiar. He might miss Earth’s technologies when he leaves.

<Aximili-kala,> his father says when he comes on screen. <I did not expect your call. We are not due to speak for another week. Are you alright?>

<I’m well,> Ax tells him. <How are you?>

<I am well also,> his father replies.

<Good,> Ax says, and twists his fingers together behind his back where his father can’t see. He feels inexplicably awkward, which is an odd thing to feel around his father, whom he’d always been close with- well, before getting marooned on this planet. They had reconnected after the war finally ended, but after a comprehensive explanation of everything that had happened in both of their lives and Ax’s father catching him up on the lives of everyone he knew back home, they had come to a stumbling halt.

Struggling to find something to talk to his father about had rarely been an issue when they lived in the same scoop. But the last few years have changed them both- Ax especially. His father might look worryingly old now, aging too much in the sparse number of years Ax hadn’t seen him in, but Ax had not only grown up, he had fought a war. He’d fought a war with a bunch of aliens just as young as he was and he’d immersed himself in their strange culture; he’d formed close bonds with his alien friends and even formed a bond that went further than friendship.

Ax hasn’t told his father about his feelings for Marco. He isn’t entirely sure why. He tries not to think about it.

<What time is it there,> Ax asks.

<Nearly sunsdown,> Ax’s father replies. <I will go to sleep in another hour or so. What time is it for you?>

<Morning,> Ax says. <I have just completed my rituals.>

<What have you been doing? Your surroundings look new.>

<They are,> Ax says, and tilts the laptop around as much as it will allow- the many attachments he’s had to strap to it to make it able to contact his homeworld hinder his movements somewhat. <I am currently sitting in a bathtub in the bathroom of a ‘motel.’ It is a place where people can temporarily stay, and->

Ax pauses and thinks about it. <It’s like a _hirrun_ ,> he explains, <but you must get your own food.>

<Ah. Why are you there?>

<We are on what they call a ‘road trip.’ From what I have researched, it is a bonding and possibly a growing ritual to be conducted among friends.>

<You are with the rest of your unit?>

<I am with the Animorphs, yes.>

From his father’s side of the screen there is a scraping sound that means he’s skirting his hoof along the floor. Ax misses that sound. At the noise, he can suddenly recall the texture of the floor in his childhood home where his father is currently standing.

<I was under the impression that you hadn’t been in contact with any of them apart from your shorm .>

<And Marco,> Ax adds. He silently curses himself at his thoughtlessness when his father’s eyestalks waver. <I spoke to Marco several times a month.>

He feels bad about it as soon as he says this detail- he speaks to his father much less than that nowadays, but in his defence, he has much less to talk about with his father.

<Right,> his father nods. <So you are all together again.>

<We are.>

Silence, apart from the hoof scraping.

<I was under the impression,> his father says hesitantly, <that your relationship with the rest of them is… strained.>

Ax thinks back to last night. The nightclub had been smoky and crowded and Ax had mostly focused on standing up properly after he’d gotten to a certain level of drunk. Cassie had come to find him after Rachel had attacked the bouncer and they’d walked home in a silence that didn’t feel as comfortable as some of the silences have been during the trip.

He thinks to the game of truth-or-dare, of Tobias and Rachel disappearing and then coming back with stony expressions. Of Ax driving a car for the first time and watching everyone’s face in the rear-view mirror. They had all looked so tired. He thinks of Jake and Cassie and the gulf between them, all the things left unsaid.

He thinks fleetingly of Marco- Marco with his face too close; thoughtlessly clasping Ax’s face in his soft hands; Marco swearing under his breath as he turns a corner too fast and the tires screech. Marco with the sun in his hair during a look that Ax sneaks; the column of his throat as he tips his head up in a laugh; Marco pretending not to chase two people out of a diner after they stared one too many times.

Ax cuts away from that line of thought before he can get too lost in it.

Strained. Yes. They are strained, all of them, in different and similar ways, and their relationships with one another are strained to the point of breaking. Ax has started to think that they would have already snapped completely if it weren’t for the years of history that tied them all together.

<It is strained,> Ax says instead of telling his father all of these things. <We- they are strained.>

Ax’s father projects a sigh into his head. <I would expect nothing different. None of them were given the proper training necessary to deal with the reality of the war they were forced to fight.>

Ax blinks with all four of his eyes. It’s a more sympathetic answer than he’d expected.

Apparently his father is feeling sentimental today, because the next thing he says is, <I would be honoured to meet them one day. Your friends. Not simply because of the feats they accomplished, but because you experienced so much with them.>

<Oh,> Ax says. His fingers flex around the base of the laptop, unexpectedly touched.

He tries to remember if his father had said anything similar when it came to Elfangor’s friends, but as he thinks about it he realizes Elfangor had fellow soldiers he respected, and he was friendly with many of them, but he did not have friends like the ones Ax has.

The idea of this has Ax suddenly and desperately wishing that he can keep his friendships. He had been sad after the war to see everyone drifting apart, but he’d pushed it out of his mind. He had Tobias, he’d never doubted he’d have Tobias, and he’d gotten glimpses of Marco. He had assumed that the others were occupied with other things.

He hadn’t much thought about whether or not they would see each other again. On one hand it felt like a guarantee, after seeing them near-constantly for three years- but on the other hand, Ax supposes he had begun shutting himself off from the concept of them. He would be going home soon.

Before Marco had arrived and told him about the road trip, Ax had been slowly coming to terms with the idea that this part of his life was over. He would go back home and be a Prince, and things would go back to how they used to be before he crash-landed on Earth, except-

Except. Well. Nowadays his life back on homeworld feels more like a dream than his past few years on Earth.

<Aximili-kala?>

Ax startles at the nickname. <Sorry.>

<You looked a hundred lightyears away.>

<More than that, father.>

It gets Ax a laugh, even if it is a sad one. <We miss you here, Aximili.>

<I know. I miss you, too.>

<When are you coming home? I haven’t heard anything from the officers who are supposed to be co-ordinating your return.>

Ax is silent. Under him, his tail blade twitches uncomfortably after being crammed under his bulk for the better part of a night.

 _I am unsure when I will return_ is the answer Ax has been giving his father for months now.

Ax breathes in deeply through his nose. <Father- I think I should stay on Earth some time longer.>

<You do,> his father says slowly. <Might I get a reason for that?>

<I don’t… want to leave it yet,> Ax says, and it sounds just as pathetic as it did when he was coming up with the thought.

<You can always visit.>

At first Ax thinks he means home, then he realizes he means he can come home and visit Earth.

<My duties as Prince would mean it would not be a priority.>

<So you will be accepting a role as Prince?>

<I-> Ax stops. His fingernails press into the small creases in the plastic of the laptop. Primitive, all of it, and Ax is stupidly fond of the thing. <It would be foolish not to. Who would turn down that offer?>

Ax’s father tilts his head at him. Behind him there is a sliver of sun coming in from the window. Its light reminds Ax of countless days in his childhood. If his father showed him the rest of the scoop, would it be the same as Ax remembered? If he came back home the very next day, would he walk into the series of rooms that he can picture on the back of his eyelids?

<You are different than I remember,> is what Ax’s father finally tells him. It doesn’t sound like a condemnation. <You are acting… almost… human.>

Ax blinks once more. <And how many humans have you met, father?>

<I _have_ done my research since they became significant in the war, > Ax’s father says.

Ax immediately thinks of his tone as a _duh_ -voice, which isn’t anything close to an andalite concept. Maybe the humans have rubbed off on him more than he expected.

On the screen, Ax’s father is eyeing him anxiously. His fur is paler than Ax remembers; thinning around his ears and eye stalks.

Ax wonders if he, himself, looks unrecognizably old to his father.

A knock on the bathroom door gets both Ax and his father looking towards the source of the noise.

A voice comes through the door: “Ax, if you don’t get out of there I will come in and pee on you. Not in the toilet, _on you_. I’ll stand in the tub and squat. Just to spite you.”

<Rachel,> his father guesses. <She sounds much like she did in the footage.>

Ax wonders if they got the same footage they show on the news on Earth.

<Tell her I said hello,> Ax’s father continues.

<I will,> Ax says. Then, towards Rachel: <I am getting out now, give me a minute.>

“Thirty seconds.”

<My father says hi, by the way.>

A pause. “Fine, one minute. Are you talking to your dad in there? What are you even talking to him on?”

<I configured a laptop,> Ax tells her. He places said laptop and its attachments on the tiles beside the tub and climbs out slowly- it’s a hard feat with hoofs. He has to concentrate on not slipping on the smooth scoop of the bathtub.

When he’s standing properly on the bathroom floor, he bends enough to pick up the laptop and its attachments, putting the still-open laptop under his arm so the screen faces his armpit.

<Not that I do not appreciate this view,> his father says, <but I might go now.>

<I do not remember you being this sarcastic,> Ax tells him, which is a lie. Ax got his dry sense of humour from somewhere.

He opens the door just as his father is wishing him a goodbye.

Rachel is standing in the doorway, looking rumpled and underdressed. She’s at least wearing a shirt, which is more than she went to bed in.

She eyes the laptop. “Uh, hi, Ax’s dad.”

Ax scrambles to hold it in a way that lets them see each other properly.

A second passes. Then Ax’s father says, <It is an honour to meet you, Rachel Berenson.>

Rachel nods. “Yeah. Likewise,” she says, looking at Ax in a way that he interprets as _is this what I’m supposed to be saying, please help_. “I like your, um. Eyestalks.”

<Thank you,> Ax’s father says, and it’s only a childhood worth of knowledge about the man that lets him know that he’s supressing laughter. <I grew them myself.>

Ax doesn’t bother holding back his own laughter. <We will talk later, father.>

<Yes. The usual time and day?>

<Yes. Until then.>

Ax ends the transmission and closes the laptop. As he’s shuffling it back under his arm and moving out of Rachel’s way, she smirks.

“Andalites have dad jokes. Huh.”

<The bathroom is free,> he tells her.

She nods at him and steps past him into the bathroom. As she closes the door, As hears her mutter something that sounds a lot like “ _I grew them myself_. Pshh.”

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

They spend most of the day driving beach-wards, which means Ax spends it stretched out in the backseat.

A food/toilet break turns into an impromptu driving lesson when Cassie brings it up. They all eat fried food at a gas station while Marco takes Cassie for a practice drive in the empty parking lot next to the gas station, which is quite funny to watch up until Cassie backs into a lamppost, putting a dent in the back of the car and effectively ending the driving lesson.

She’s still apologizing to Marco by the time everyone climbs back into the car.

Marco keeps insisting it’s fine, he’s done the very same thing, what does she think the dent in the side is from, it’s from that time Marco scraped a mailbox the day he got the car- but there’s something tense in his voice and also his shoulders that makes Ax want to reach over the car and hold his hand.

As Ax thinks this, Marco glances back at him in the rear-view mirror. Ax startles, worried for a moment that he’s projected something in thought-speak, but nothing in Marco’s face changes. He just gives Ax a small, tight smile.

Ax tries to communicate a smile the best he can without a mouth. The others have told him they can see it in his eyes, so Ax channels what he hopes is a smile towards all his eyes.

<Quit distracting the driver,> Tobias tells him from where he’s perched on the car seat in front of him.

<I’m not,> Ax says, but he turns his gaze from Marco to the window.

Tobias snorts in thought-speak. <Uh-huh.>

Ax thinks about reaching up to flick him in the wing. Instead he says, <You’ve been very quiet.>

<I usually am.>

<You have been quieter than usual.>

<Maybe I’m just immersed in all the fun we’re having,> Tobias says. He starts cleaning under his right wing, pressing his beak through his feathers.

<You aren’t having fun,> Ax says

<Is anyone?> Tobias flexes his wings, then continues to clean them. <Look. I’m not having a _bad_ time. Just- not a fun time. >

<I understand.>

<Yeah.> Tobias is quiet for a second. Then he continues, <Hey. Thanks for keeping me company at the nightclub.>

Ax nods, then stops when he registers that Tobias isn’t looking at him.

He had stood outside that club in the smoking area, partly because his legs were hard to manage at that point of drunk, and partly because Tobias had demorphed and flown up to the roof after a few minutes of being inside the club. Ax had talked to him in thought-speak for most of the night.

<It was my pleasure,> Ax says, because it’s a line he’s heard multiple times in movies and it’s the first thing he thinks of.

Tobias laughs in his head. <Okay, man.>

Ax watches the lines of his wings as he shifts them and wonders if Tobias would have agreed to this trip if Ax hadn’t. He likes to think Tobias would have gone anyway, but he isn’t sure.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

They sleep in the van that is, according to a map, two hours from town with a beach.

It’s less complicated than Ax thought it would be. They’re used to being physically uncomfortable nowadays, so they all sleep in their seats: Jake and Marco in the passengers’ and driver’s seats tilted back as far as they can go. Rachel and Cassie are  in the seats behind them, un-tilted, Rachel leaning against a window, half lying-down with her legs in the middle seat and Cassie lying across the third seat with her head on Rachel’s hip. Her arms are curled under her head, most likely protecting herself from the sharp jut of Rachel’s hipbones.

And then in the backseat there is Ax, splayed out as much as he wants. As always, Tobias doesn’t take up much space- he perches beside Rachel’s headrest.

Ax stays awake as he listens to the others start breathing in the slow, relaxed way he associates with sleep, andalite or otherwise. Humans do make more noise, since they have more breathing holes, but it’s a similar noise nonetheless.

As Ax is finally drifting off, he hears a series of hushed movements and then a car door snicks open. Ax swivels an eyestalk towards it and watches Marco climb quietly out of the car, not closing the door behind him.

Ax waits. When a few minutes pass and Marco doesn’t return, Ax shakes off his weariness and climbs out after him as quietly as he can. He quickly realizes that four hooves and his bulk aren’t compatible with a quiet exit, since the closest door is next to Rachel and Cassie’s seats, not his- so he morphs human and squeezes out of the car.

It takes less than a second of searching to find Marco. He’s lying on the grass on the side of the road, just below where the grass turns into asphalt. His arms are folded underneath his head and he looks up when he hears Ax.

“What’s up,” Marco says.

Ax rubs his lips together. It’s always a change, having a mouth. He’s grown more used to it over the years, but every time takes an adjustment period, even if that period has gotten shorter and shorter.

“You can’t sleep,” Ax says.

Marco shakes his head. Ax misses how his hair used to fall everywhere; it would have fallen over his arms at the movement.

Marco stays silent as Ax comes to lie down next to him. Ax doesn’t leave much space between them out of habit, then briefly regrets it when their arms brush as he’s in the middle of lying down. As he settles into the grass, arms at his sides, he wonders if it’d be too obvious if he inched away to a safe distance.

The stars are coarse in the sky here, thicker than they were in Ax’s forest near Cassie’s barn, thicker than Ax has ever seen them while living on this planet. It’s enough to make him homesick as he remembers the amount of stars that decorate the sky of his homeworld. He used to look up at night to a sea of them; even here it’s nothing compared to what he used to see back home.

“Where is it again?”

Ax looks over at Marco, about to ask _what do you mean_ when he realizes the only thing Marco could mean.

He raises a hand that doesn’t have enough fingers and points. Marco’s gaze follows it.

“Do you miss it?”

Ax considers. He thinks briefly of his father and how old he looks. “I do, but less nowadays.”

Marco makes a noise in his throat. Ax had been nervous about the amount of throat-based communication humans used at first, but he’s grown more or less adept at it. This noise means Marco acknowledges what Ax just said, but doesn’t know how to respond.

What Marco does come out with is, “When are you headed back?”

Ax feels his own throat constrict. Very annoying, these human throats. Always acting up.

“I’m not sure.”

Another hum. This one has more nuance than the last.

“I figured you’d get the hell off planet as soon as you got the chance,” Marco says.

Ax closes his eyes against the stars. He thought so too, once. Not very long ago, even- he does miss his homeworld, he misses it like he misses his eyestalks: instinctually, painfully. He goes to move them while he’s in human morph and they aren’t there and it’s a surprise every time.

Ax draws in a breath. He’s been told that it makes these things easier.

“They will make me a Prince, if I want.”

He holds his breath afterwards, eyes opening. There’s a beat where Marco doesn’t say anything and Ax is afraid to look over at him, but then Marco says, “That’s great!”

Nuances. There is something underneath Marco’s enthusiasm that Ax only catches from years of knowing him well.

In response, Ax hums. He doesn’t have a complete handle on throat-based communication, but he assumes he gets some of his meaning across, because Marco asks, “Not so great?”

“I’m unsure if I will accept the offer,” Ax admits.

Marco shifts his head. Ax can’t see it, he’s looking at the sky again, but he can hear the grass rustle.

“Why would you not?”

“Many reasons,” Ax says lamely. He hopes Marco won’t question him on this, and is immensely gratified when Marco just shifts some more in the grass.

“Gotta make the most of having you here while you’re still with us, then.”

His tone is pleasant, jovial, even, but it’s undercut with something that sounds almost blank.

“Marco-” Ax chances a look over at him. Marco already has his face turned towards him and Ax loses his breath for a moment as he takes in the sight of Marco’s face so close to his. He can’t see much of him in the dark, but the fact of his closeness is enough to make his breath hitch and then start up again.

“I will visit,” Ax tries. “And we can still communicate.”

“I know.” Marco holds his gaze for another few seconds before turning back to the sky. “Won’t be the same, though.”

“No,” Ax agrees quietly. Then he, too, turns back to the sky.

They stare for a while longer as Ax feels the telltale weariness start to tug at him again. He could sleep here, in the grass, it’s warm enough- he would have to demorph, but he likes the idea of it, he and Marco curled together-

“Is Tobias going with you?”

Ax blinks. “Tobias?”

“He doesn’t exactly have much going on,” Marco says. “He’s not really… involved in Earth stuff. People stuff. Hasn’t been for a while. And he’s your shorm.”

Ax opens his mouth. His teeth suddenly feel very heavy.

Tobias-

He could invite his shorm, his nephew, back to his homeworld. He could show him his scoop, his family, the two suns in the sky. He could show Tobias his extended family- he’s Elfangor’s _son_ , which is something he hasn’t mentioned yet to his parents, Tobias’ _grandparents_ , why has he not-

“I hadn’t considered it,” Ax says honestly, and as he does he wonders why he hadn’t. Has Tobias thought about it before? If so, why hadn’t he brought it up? Did he think he wasn’t welcome or had he, like Ax, genuinely not considered it as an option?

All Marco says is, “Okay,” in that casual tone that borders on not casual at all, and Ax wants to look over again but he watches the stars instead.

He keeps his gaze in the direction that would eventually bring him to the light of his homeworld. He can’t see it now, not this far away, but he could if he travelled far enough. He could be there in days, in less than that, if he just agreed to come back.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

Tobias waits until everyone’s booked into the motel, then he flies in the window of one of the rooms.

It’s cheaper. That’s what he keeps thinking; that’s what everyone keeps saying. It’s cheaper if Tobias doesn’t count as someone in a room, it means he doesn’t need a bed. The subject comes up automatically and Tobias never thinks to counteract it.

It’s only when he flies in one of the windows- Marco and Jake, again- and Marco mentions it that Tobias even thinks about it.

<What would I need with a bed,> is what Tobias ends up saying.

“No, yeah, I know,” Marco says. “Just. Y’know. You’re still a person, you’re still here, renting out a motel room. You’re just- perching on something.”

<Are they charging me for it?>

“No, but. I mean. No.”

<Okay?> Tobias sits and waits, but Marco doesn’t say anything, so he flaps over to the TV and sits on top of it. He wonders briefly about those TV shows Marco had religiously shown Ax before they had to go into hiding- Ax had kept up with some of them after the war ended and he had his own scoop, but Tobias hadn’t bothered with most of it.

As Tobias sits on top of the TV he finds himself distantly wondering about the fictional lives of his favourite TV characters. Buffy was still going, right? She was still killing vampires and doing her usual slaying thing. She died at one point, but Tobias is pretty sure she came back. He’s 80% sure. Can’t have the Buffy show without Buffy.

“So,” Marco says, sitting on his motel bed with a bounce that doesn’t often accompany motel bed. “Everyone ready for firework-ing?”

“Ready as we’ll ever be,” Jake says. He sits on his own bed with much less aplomb.

Marco flops his back down into the bed. Tobias thinks fleetingly of having that long spine; all the things he could do with it.

Firework-ing, as Marco puts it, comes fast. It’s dark, but just barely, when they head out to the beach and pick out a spot for it: the beach is nearly deserted, a thin strip of sand before the ocean. The sand is gritty and scrapes Tobias’ palms when he crunches handfuls in his hands.

They sit up on the dunes and some of them walk a safe distance away to set the fireworks in the sand, lighting them one by one and then running back to the dunes, sitting down with the others as the fuzes fizzle down.

Then there’s the hiss of a firework starting up, and then sparks, and then one after the other the fireworks shoot into the sky with a pitched noise that has Tobias flinching and gasping in awe at the same time.

“Oh, shit,” he hears someone say. It’s a guy, but he can’t tell if it’s Marco or Jake. The sudden bangs drown it out, and then they’re all cast into silence as light explodes across the sky in multicolour.

As they fly upwards, Tobias watches everyone else. To them, it seems like less of an obligation- some of them even look like they’re having fun, even if it’s strained. He tries to stretch his mouth in a smile but he can’t quite get it right. He gets the feeling that the rest of them are faking it too, even if they’re just doing it better than him.

Distantly, Tobias thinks this is what it could have been like: 4th of July with his friends in an alternate universe where he was a normal guy in his late teens. He likes to think that he would’ve found these guys even without the war. He doesn’t think it’s realistic, but he likes to imagine it anyway.

As the fireworks continue explode overhead, Tobias watches the faces of his friends. They’re all watching the colours in the sky with varying levels of wonder. None of them are looking at it with the naïve eyes of teenagers watching fireworks; instead they watch with the eyes of veterans; of survivors; all half-smile at the colour and half-flinch at the noise.

Eventually the noise starts to die down. It’s then that Tobias remembers, now more than ever, that the sand isn’t particularly warm underneath them. When they had been on the way here Marco had suggested a blanket but everyone had insisted they’d be fine.

Surprisingly, it’s Cassie who speaks first. “I was wondering- how long is this trip going to go on for? After we go to a pool at night, we’ve finished Marco’s list.”

It’s met with silence. It sounds darker and deeper than it would’ve before the fireworks.

Tobias curls his fingers into the sand, which isn’t cold yet but definitely isn’t warm.

“I guess I’ll drop everyone off after we go to a pool at night,” Marco says. He takes a noisy breath and leans back on his elbows. “So! Anyone have big plans for after the trip?”

Beside him, Ax shifts. Tobias’ shoulder bumps into his with the movement; smooth skin where there is normally fur against smooth skin where there is usually feathers. Tobias wonders if andalites have fireworks as a recreational activity.

“I will be going home sometime,” Ax says.

Tobias turns unwittingly towards  Marco, who doesn’t seem to react. Okay, so Ax has spilled the beans to him before this. Took him long enough.

“Yeah?” Jake shifts in the sand and Tobias wishes wholeheartedly for better eyes. These human ones are dull and he can’t see shit in the darkness the fireworks has left them in. “When are you thinking?”

“I am not sure. I want-” Ax pauses, clears his throat. It’s a very human sound and Tobias eyes him for it; he has no doubt that Ax did it to buy himself time. “I don’t want to be someone who can’t live without a war.”

Silence again, apart from the sound of sand shifting and the wind brushing over them. From far right of Tobias, Rachel makes a noise that sounds a lot like “Yeah.”

Tobias thinks hard about demorphing. No one would notice. Ax would, since he’s pressed up next to him, but he wouldn’t say anything.

Cassie speaks next.

“I’m heading back to high school,” she says. “After that- if my grades are good enough- I’ll go to med school.”

That gets a murmur of agreement.

“That suits you,” Jake says.

“Thank you,” Cassie says quietly, and Tobias wishes for a bonfire like the ones that happen in the movies: something, anything, that gives them more light than the moon. Sure, he can see a little, but that’s all vague shadows. He can see shapes, but only barely.

Cassie asks, “And you, Jake?”

Jake’s laugh comes out of the darkness. “Uh. If I don’t get jail time-”

“You won’t,” Marco tells him. “You have the andalites and how many human officials on your side?”

“You know how weird it is to hear you say _human_ officials, Marco?”

“What? We live with aliens now, man.”

Jake is quiet for a moment. Then he says, “I mean. Everything’s being decided for me. No one- no one thinks I’m going to jail for my war crimes. So I think I want a quiet life. After everything. I don’t know what I’ll do, but I want something quiet. Peaceful.”

Wind brushes over their heads. Tobias lifts a hand and splays it so his fingers catch it, picturing thermals; the expanse of sky ahead of him as he coasts on the wind.

Quiet. Yeah.

“I was thinking about heading back to the Hork Bajir colony,” Tobias hears himself say. He runs his tongue around his mouth after saying it, like the words are still stuck to his teeth: more and more nowadays, having a mouth feels strange.

“I’m not dead set on it,” he continues. “But I’ve been thinking.”

It’s met with silence. He waits, and the wind gets louder.

“Well,” Rachel says finally. “ _I_ don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do. Marco?”

 _This_ is met with a round of laughter, even if it’s weak. Tobias looks sideways towards the dark outlines of their bodies, all shaking with the laugh, and for a moment he doesn’t feel like an alien in what used to be his own body.

Marco waits until the laughter is mostly died down before saying, “Showbiz, baby.”

“Oh, god,” Jake says, and Tobias listens to the soft impact of Marco leaning over and hitting him in the shoulder.

“It’s a good goal.”

“Okay.”

“It _is_. Who doesn’t want to be a movie star?”

“Lots of people,” Cassie says, and Tobias imagines her and Jake sharing a look. It’s strangely comforting to imagine it; like imagining your parents holding hands.

Marco snorts. More sounds of shifting in the sand and Tobias looks over so he can get a correct picture of Marco leaning back on his elbows: it was so hard getting a good read on everyone’s movements with dull human senses.

No one speaks again for a while. The wind blows sand across them and they all watch the sky which has long since gone dark from the fireworks, which weren’t half as impressive as Marco had made them out to be.

“One more thing on the list crossed out,” is what Marco says after a few minutes of silence.

He gets multiple hums of agreement. Tobias only joins in when he remembers he has the appropriate throat muscles. It’s easy to forget after years of near-constantly being a bird.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

Marco gets up to set off more fireworks, but after a while the atmosphere gets stale. The gang stays quiet with the occasional ooh-ing and aah-ing at whatever fireworks are happening overhead, but then the darkness sets back in.

After the third go, Marco calls it a night. It was a good try, but this feels more like something they should’ve tried after- something. A party, or a Fourth of July celebration- they should’ve had something before this, rather than spending hours not talking in their separate motel rooms. Marco would’ve suggested drinking if he didn’t think most of them were pretty fed up with it by now- he thinks Rachel is still recovering from it, with all the amount she’s been lying around the car with her eyes closed.

“This sand is awful,” Marco says to no one in particular as they head back to the motel, which is close enough that they didn't bother driving.

He gets a bunch of agreeable noises in reply. At least there isn’t much sand to step on- the tide is high at this time of night, which has progressed rapidly into real darkness that is only punctured by the moon now.

“There was a changing room near here, right,” Rachel says. “With a restroom? Otherwise I’m gonna crouch in some bushes.”

“There’s definitely a restroom,” Cassie tells her.

Rachel nods. Then she says, “Hey, remember when you couldn’t stop peeing everywhere when you first morphed a wolf?”

“ _Everyone_ peed _everywhere_ when they first morphed wolf,” Cassie says, and it comes out so defensive that Marco starts giggling.

“What,” Cassie says, and then “Quit it,” but she starts to laugh under the words.

“We’ve seen each other pee way more than is normal than most teenagers,” Marco says.

Again, he gets hums of agreement. This gets Jake asking, “What is a normal amount for teenagers to pee in front of their friends,” which starts up a debate that mostly involves what they’ve seen on TV, heard in high school halls and from their parents.

Marco interjects when he can and keeps it going. He’ll keep it going whenever he can; this easy camaraderie that they had all but lost at the end of the war. He’d disembowel himself with his own hands- human hands, even, if he was given some tools to help him along- to keep this going, if he had to.

He half wants to just sit out of the conversation and listen, bask in it, but he’s an important part of keeping it alight so he tosses in the occasional comment. Gets in a few good jokes, too, which get everyone laughing. Not hysterical laughter or anything, but enough to make Marco quietly happy about it. His friends deserve to laugh more than they get to.

He concentrates on making his friends laugh and keeping the talk going rather than the fact of Ax a few people over, between Tobias and Cassie. He’s watching his feet, as he usually does when he’s in human morph in the dark, and Marco uses this to his advantage and steals a few glances as they walk.

When they’re almost back at the motel, Marco clears his throat. “Hey, does anyone want something from the 7-11? Open 24-7. Heh. I’m a poet and I don’t even know it.”

“Sadly, you do,” Jake says, and Marco laughs loudly enough to earn a side-eye.

“There’s one about a block away,” Marco says, pointing. “Hey, Ax-man, want to tag along? They’ll almost definitely have that energy drink you go nuts for.”

Ax perks up. “Yes! Yes. Though I should not drink it now. Later.”

“Later,” Marco nods. “Anyway, bye guys!”

He breaks off from the group, jerking his head at Ax to follow, and hopes like hell that people take the hint that he isn’t actually banking on other people coming along. When footsteps plod up behind him and only Ax appears at his side, something in Marco’s chest loosens.

Okay. Good, because then he can actually get the chance to have this conversation with Ax alone. But also bad, because if someone else did come along, Marco would have an easy excuse _not_ to have the conversation with Ax.

They walk in relative silence to the 7-11, which is less than a minute’s walk away from the motel. Ax makes an immediate beeline to where the energy drinks are kept and Marco follows, hands in his pockets and hopefully not bouncing too much as he walks.

When Ax grabs three cans- one for each hand and then a third balanced on top of the other two- he turns to Marco and stares. “Are you not getting anything?”

Marco shakes his head. “Nope. All you, big guy.”

Ax makes a head movement that means he momentarily forgot he didn’t have eyestalks. Then he says, “Okay,” and starts walking up to the counter.

Marco blows out a breath and follows. He pays for Ax’s cans, shoots the cashier a flashy smile when she looks at him like she might recognize him from somewhere, and then walks out of the store with Ax at his side.

Ax carries the cans in his arms. Marco eyes them as they walk back to the motel and counts their steps silently, each one narrowing down Marco’s chance at talking to Ax alone about- stuff. Things.

As they cross the motel parking lot, Marco grits his teeth against a silent pep talk: _Come on. This might be the last chance you get in a while. There is no way you can subtly drag Ax off from the group to talk to him. What you just did was un-subtle enough. Might as well try it now_.

“So!” Marco comes to a stop just in front of their rooms, which are side by side.

Ax comes to a stop as soon as he notices. A can wobbles in his arms and he steadies it. “Yes,” he says, when Marco doesn’t continue.

Marco rocks back and forth on his heels. Okay. Shit. No, he can do this. He’s killed a bunch of people and aliens and completed secret missions against a race hellbent on enslaving the Earth. He can _do_ this.

“So Rachel mentioned that Andalite kissing was face-touching,” Marco blurts, and all the courage leaks out of him when Ax’s neutral expression fills with dread.

“I didn’t- know that,” Marco continues. “But it makes- sense? Now that I think about your reactions. When I touched your face. So I just wanted to apologize for doing that without your, uh. Consent. And my knowledge! Because I didn’t, I didn’t know. Obviously. I don’t know why I never asked. I did think about asking, I just never did.”

Ax nods. He had started nodding about halfway through Marco’s babble and is still nodding when he trails off.

Marco holds back a wince. Ax’s expression is _not_ what he had hoped for when he had pictured having this discussion-

Marco opens his mouth to try again when Ax cuts him off.

“I should have mentioned it,” he says. “I should have-”

He stops. His throat bobs and Marco watches his adam’s apple, which is something Ax doesn’t have in his natural form.

“Why didn’t you,” Marco asks, and it’s his turn to swallow. His throat is suddenly far too dry.

Fear flickers through Ax’s eyes. They are, as always, an amalgam of all six of them, but Marco can just about see a glimpse of Ax’s andalite eyes in amongst everyone else’s.

It sends a small thrill through Marco. Ax has been through as many battles as Marco, but this has the fodder to scare him. It’s a power that Marco pushes out of the way, because it’s hardly the thing to focus on right now.

Ax’s mouth opens, then closes. His lips press together hard enough to turn white and his hands clench around the cans of energy drink. In thought speak, he says, <I was worried you would stop, if you knew.>

Marco nods. He watches Ax’s strange human eyes as he takes a step closer, watches them widen and track Marco’s own eyes.

“What makes you think I’d stop,” Marco says.

Ax blinks rapidly. His lips part absently, like he’d temporarily forgotten he had them. His head jerks minutely, again in that movement that means he forgot he didn’t have head stalks-

Marco shifts his face closer, tilting slightly, holding his breath in hope. Would this even effect Ax in the same way it did humans? The implication would, maybe- Ax had seen movies, he knew what human kissing meant, he knew what Marco was heading towards.

Still, Marco meets Ax’s eyes before moving any closer. Ax’s eyes have gone half-lidded and his breathing sounds funny, so Marco thinks that yeah, this has to be a sign of _something_ , so he closes the distance and presses their mouths together.

It’s a hell of a lot better than his one drunken hookup in Hollywood. That had felt more like a fact than anything else- yeah, that’s a mouth against my mouth, okay, I can feel that, what’s the big deal- but the touch of Ax’s mouth sends electricity through Marco’s nervous system. It shoots all the way to the tips of his fingers, to his toes, to the end of each individual hair follicle.

Ax’s mouth against his is less of a fact and more of a feel. Marco’s mind dies away a bit, replaced by the stark sensation of Ax’s mouth, now opening under his own. The pressure against his lips is soft and sure. Ax makes a soft noise against him, and Marco wants to record it and keep it close to him at all times.

Holy _shit_.

 _Fuck, I hope this is even half as good for a being who doesn’t usually have lips_ , Marco thinks as he draws back.

Ax’s eyes don’t open for a second. When they do, they open halfway, dazed.

Marco bites down on a grin. He couldn’t have found it too bad, then.

He starts saying _so you’re into human kissing as well, huh,_ but only gets as far as “So-” before Ax lurches forwards and pushes his mouth into Marco’s again. This kiss is clumsier, but after a moment they right themselves and Marco tilts his head enough to make it smoother.

He only realizes his hands are a thing when he’s in the middle of bringing them up to rest on Ax’s hips. He squeezes gently, thumbing the material of Ax’s shirt, rubbing his hipbone through the fabric-

Ax makes another noise into his mouth and pulls back. It’s not far, just enough to breathe harshly in the scant space between their faces, but Marco watches his face.

“You okay?”

Ax nods. He still looks dazed. “There are many sensations happening at once,” he says, and his tongue comes out to swipe at his bottom lip.

Marco tries not to focus on it. He half succeeds.

“This is not like when I kissed Estrid,” Ax continues.

Marco has a moment of _wait-who-what_ before he remembers. “You guys kissed?”

Ax nods. “It was not like this,” he repeats. His throat clicks.

Marco lets himself grin this time. “I’m gonna take that as a compliment.”

Ax grins in that odd way he sometimes does in human morph: like he’s used to smiling in ways that don’t involve lips. It can come across as disturbing or charming or something in between, but Marco is all parts charmed as Ax’s lips twitch into his own grin.

“I,” Ax starts, and both of them startle when his watch beeps.

Marco stares at it. “15 minute mark,” he says when Ax doesn’t say anything. “Might as well demorph now. There are no stairs to get to the rooms this time.”

Ax eyes him, but then he nods, stepping back. He pauses and then bends down to place the energy drinks on the ground beside him, then starts to demorph.

Marco waits until Ax is all the way back to normal, then says, “Hi.”

<Hi,> Ax says. One of his front hooves scrape against the concrete at their feet and it’s loud enough to get them both glancing down. <Sorry.>

“Happens to the best of us,” Marco says, which makes no sense but he says it anyway.

Ax scrapes his hoof again, quieter this time. <I can morph back to human now, if you wish. I enjoyed the… human-kissing.>

“Yeah? Good.” Marco tries not to let his smile get out of control. “Though, I mean. You’re already in andalite-form, we could just andalite-kiss for a bit.”

Ax’s eyestalks jerk. <Yes?>

“Yeah, ‘course.”

Ax wavers. <You did not seem to find it enjoyable when you accidentally kissed me in the past.>

“Yeah, well.” Marco clears his throat. “I didn’t know the implications?”

Ax nods slowly. His main eyes stay on Marco’s face, but his eyestalks are surveying him up and down.

“What’s up,” Marco tries.

Ax is quiet for a moment. Then he says, <Do you still-? When I’m like this, I mean, do you->

“Oh, dude.” Marco reaches up and places both hands on the side of Ax’s face, all gentle fingers. “Obviously. It’s _you_.”

<Ah,> Ax says, and it’s very soft in Marco’s head but it carries a kind of weight Marco almost doesn’t know what to do with.

Marco doesn’t quite keep his hands from trembling against Ax’s face. “So, how’s about you show me how to andalite-kiss properly, ‘cause I have no idea other than ‘face stroking’ and I bet I’m not doing great.”

Ax laughs in his head. <I am not exactly an expert.>

“Well, you’re talking to a literal alien who has almost zero experience with andalite-kissing culture, so you’re the expert out of the two of us.”

Ax smiles at him with his eyes, then he reaches up and lays both his hands on Marco’s face, his fingers splaying over Marco’s cheekbones, brushing the start of his eyelashes and reaching down to his chin.

Marco does his best to mirror the placement on Ax’s own face, silently relieved when a wave of butterflies threatens to choke him at the soft touch of Ax’s hands. So andalite kissing does _something_ for him, thank god.

He’s so disarmed by the tenderness of Ax’s fingers, the gentle strokes of his palms, that he doesn’t have it in him to filter himself, so when he realizes that andalite kissing leaves his mouth free he can’t stop himself from saying, “Oh shit, we can talk while andalite kissing.”

<We can.>

“And thought-speak! So you can always talk while andalite kissing, ‘cause thought speak- I’ll shut up now. Sorry.”

<Don’t be. It’s cute.>

“Aw. Your cute lil’ human.”

<My cute little human,> Ax says, coming across as trying hard to sound solemn but wrecking it at the last moment by the dreamy quality his thought-speak is shot through with.

Marco feels himself grin again. It forms creases against Ax’s fingers, which follow the creases curiously, and Marco spares a fleeting thought to how having a human face complicates andalite kisses, and then another less fleeting thought to how andalites take cross-species romances and for that matter trans people, and then a thought about long distance relationships.

Marco closes his eyes. _Don’t think about it,_ he commands himself. Then, opening his eyes: “Do you close your eyes when andalite kissing?”

<Sometimes.>

“You gotta give me the low-down on the nuances of andalite kissing sometime.”

<Nuances,> Ax agrees. He sounds distracted, and Marco doesn’t blame him- he’s pretty damn distracted himself. Even with his thoughts threatening to drag him into a worry spiral, he keeps getting pulled back to the slow, comforting movements of Ax’s palms against his face.

Marco hears himself hum, and is about to let his eyes drift back shut when he hears footsteps and a voice saying, “Oh!” and then, almost in unison, another voice going, “O…kay?”

Marco turns to see Cassie and Jake standing awkwardly a few feet away, just having turned the corner that lead them to Ax and Marco. Jake is holding a bucket of ice and Cassie is holding nothing, unless you count her own shirt, which she had started clutching upon seeing Marco and Ax.

Marco drops his hands along with Ax. “Hey, guys.”

“Hi,” Cassie says. Then she elbows Jake in the side, who says, “Yep,” like he’s just remembered the correct answer on a test.

Marco snorts. He turns back to Ax. “Uh, I’ll see you tomorrow?”

<Yes,> Ax says. He’s still smiling with his eyes in that stupidly adorable way, even if it’s dimmed a bit now with their new arrivals. <I will see you. I- yes.>

“Good to know,” Marco says, mostly so he has something to say. Then, when Ax turns and starts towards the girl’s room, he adds, “Energy drinks, man.”

<Right,> Ax says, whirling around and nearly clipping the wall with his tail blade as he does. He bends and picks up all three energy drinks, which looks a little easier now that he has extra fingers. <Good night.>

“Night,” Marco says.

 Ax gives him another eye-smile before heading into the girl’s room. After a few seconds, Cassie follows him into it with an awkward head-bob and badly concealed smile towards Marco.

Marco opens the door to his own room, which is still him-Jake-Tobias, as per usual. He heads in and throws himself face-first on what he’d declared his bed before they had headed for the beach. He burrows into the pillow and closes both arms around it, humming contentedly.

He listens as Jake follows him in and closes the door behind him. He’s probably giving Marco a Look, one that rivals Cassie in how badly he’s hiding his smile, because Tobias says, <What? What happened,> before the door even closes behind Jake.

Marco grins into his pillow. “Good things, my man. Good things.”

Tobias doesn’t say anything for a second and Marco imagines the silent conversation he’s having with Jake- maybe with thought-speak, maybe just with Jake’s eyebrows doing things.

<All right,> Tobias says. <Good for you?>

“Yep,” Marco agrees. He flops over onto his back and stares at the ceiling. It’s shitty, but it’s part of the motel experience, which Marco is all for. He’s growing steadily tired of it, but it’s also part of his road trip experience, which is worth it. Marco is determined to make this so. It’s paying off so far, and even if he has no idea if any of them will get to where they want to go in the future: Cassie and med school, Jake and his quiet life, Rachel and her whatever, then they still have this, and they’ll have this memory of a road trip. Whatever happens- whatever shitstorm their lives might become, whatever people they turn into; even if they drift apart or have violent fallouts or head to a planet lightyears away-they’ll have this.

It’s a thought almost as comforting as Ax’s fingers. It’s what Marco thinks of as he slips into sleep in a fast, easy way he hasn’t experienced since back before he knew what it felt like to feel fur grow out of his skin or hold his own guts inside his body or have a mouth press gently against his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only two chapters to go!
> 
> You probably won't get another chapter for a while, folks, since uni starts up again soon. I'm hoping to get those last 2 chapters out by the end of 2018, but I have uni + work + a bunch of other stuff keeping me busy so at the moment it's definitely more of a hope than a promise. Anyway, love you guys, hope you like the newest chapter!


	8. Chapter 8

Jake stays in bed for an hour after he wakes up.

His sleep schedule has been pretty messed up since the war started. He used to be able to sleep in even more than Marco, who used to wake up from their sleepovers at 11 in the morning, but nowadays Jake wakes up on the verge of panic.

It’s usually a cocktail of worry- part of it is the nightmares, which cling too long upon waking. But most of it comes from him being so used to reviewing the latest mission and thinking over what to do on the next mission.

When he wakes now it’s still full of worry, but a different brand now. Nowadays Jake worries about his long-term future. It’s something he hadn’t worried about since age 12, but with the possible prison sentence he’s been waking up with the familiar panic a lot more. Not that he’ll get the prison sentence. He’s almost certain. Andalites and humans alike have been hinting over the last few months, if not outright confirming, that they’re only having the trial as a formality and nothing will come of it.

It’s a relief, but on another quieter level it’s almost a let-down. Prison would be simple. Jake doesn’t _want_ to be in prison, but he wants simplicity, he doesn’t want all the options he tries not to think about. It’d be awful if he got sentenced to a lifetime of prison for war crimes, but if it happened he’d never have to decide what to do next. A path would be right there in front of him- a dark, boring path that didn’t go anywhere, but still a path.

Jake squeezes his eyes closed and then opens them again. Would Tom visit him in prison if he was alive and free? What would Tom be doing right now if Jake hadn’t had him killed?

His mind balks away from it like he’d just leaned on a hot stove. He sometimes gets a few seconds into picturing Tom in the present, imagining what he’d be doing now and the future in front of him, but he always makes himself stop.

 _Stop thinking about it_ , he tells himself, which gets him thinking about the next closest thing on his mind.

He’d dreamed of Tom last night- Tom is often present in his nightmares, which is the case before and after Jake got him killed. Last night wasn’t anything special: Jake had been in tiger morph, holding Tom down and slowly ripping off his limbs while Tom screamed and struggled to get away.

Jake hates that dream, but he hates it more when Tom tries to stop him by talking. He’d beg, sure, but mostly he’d tell Jake he loves him. He’d remind Jake of all those good times- trips they took, inside jokes, things they did together. He’d still writhe in pain, but in between the screams he’d tell Jake to please stop, what is he doing, he doesn’t understand why Jake is doing this to his big brother, he loves Jake, he loves him-

A snore from a few feet away makes him look over. Marco snores much less than he used to, but there’s still the occasional noise from his bed. Okay, there’s something better to think about- Marco is a safe topic, mostly.

Jake watches the lump under the covers shift, then settle back into stillness. It was weird watching him and Ax together, even if they were only doing the andalite hand-kissing rather than mouth-kissing. Still: weird. It was like walking in on an intimate moment between your brother and his- boyfriend, Jake supposes, even though the word sounds way too middle school.

This gets him thinking about brothers again. He remembers the dream playing out in front of him in vivid technicolour: the blood, the ripping of Tom’s skin and sinew and bone as Jake bit through it.

 _Stop_ , Jake tells himself. He tries to think about Marco again: he wonders if he should tell Marco he’s happy for him. Probably- that’s what friends do, right? God knows Marco was always supportive of him and Cassie, even if he didn’t shout it all over the place. Most of the time.

The lump shifts again, and a rasping snore halts abruptly, then settles into deep breaths.

Jake watches Marco and remembers the look on his face; all that soft, calm pleasure. He remembers Ax telling all of them on the beach that he was going to return home. Would Marco go with him? No way. Marco wasn’t interested in heading to some new planet. Ax would just- have to visit.

Jake turns to look at the ceiling. If he went to prison, would they let him get visitors? If they did, would Marco come? He would if Jake came out and asked him to, but would he come if Jake didn’t?

_Quit thinking about prison. Prison and Tom: big no-nos. Shut up, brain. Think about something else. Something happy._

His brain settles on Cassie automatically, and then sets up shop there. He thinks about her until an idea starts to form, one he can’t shake. And it’s better than lying here thinking about Tom and prison, and he’s been meaning to do it anyway, and they haven’t gotten much time alone and everyone’s asleep but she won’t be, so this is probably the best time-

Jake sighs and gets up as quietly as he can. It’s not quiet enough to slip past Tobias, who lifts his head out from under his wing and glares in the way only a bird of prey is capable of.

Jake mouths _sorry_ at him and heads out the door. It’s a warm morning, but not overly so, and the concrete is pleasantly cool on his bare feet.

He squints up at the sky. The sun is high enough that he isn’t weird for being awake, which means Cassie will definitely be up. Cassie wakes up early- or she used to. Maybe she’s picked up a habit of sleeping in.

Before he can think too hard about this possibility, he makes his hand lift and knock on the door, two quiet raps. There. Done. Even if she doesn’t answer, he still did it-

He briefly considers running as he hears soft footsteps. But then the door is opening and Cassie is blinking up at him wearily, eyes going slightly wide as they register who it is. “Oh!”

“Hi,” Jake says.

Cassie stares up at him. “Hi.”

He wonders if he should mention her pyjamas- they’re covered in tiny cartoon poodles. Marco would definitely mention it, and he’s sure Rachel has already snickered at them, but Jake always tried to avoid things that could embarrass her. He doesn’t know how hard he’s following those rules now, but they fit like an old friend.

He doesn’t mention the pyjamas. Instead he asks, “Could we- talk?”

“Sure,” Cassie says after a beat. “Um, let me-” she peers past him. “Is it cold enough to need a jacket?”

“No, it’s pretty warm.”

“Okay. Good.” Cassie steps out of the motel room and closes the door behind her, then wraps her arms around her own torso. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Jake says. “We did this already.”

“We did,” Cassie agrees. Her smile is the kind of awkward that makes him think of junior high. “So! What’s up?”

Jake hesitates. Part of him wants to move away from the motel door- he imagines Rachel pressing her ear to the other side, which is ridiculous. Still, something about how close Cassie is staying to the door makes Jake feel like this is going to be a short, light conversation, which he both does and doesn’t want it to be.

Cassie continues staring expectantly and Jake realizes right, he has to actually _say_ it, and then that he has no idea how.

He struggles wordlessly for a few seconds before managing, “Near the end of it- the war- you told me that a year after it ends, if I still want to be with you, we’d talk about it then.”

Cassie’s eyes go wide again, almost imperceptibly this time. Her lips part and Jake watches them.

“It hasn’t been a year,” Jake tries. “But. We haven’t talked about anything since the war ended, apart from this trip, so I wanted to- I wanted-”

“Do you,” Cassie says, and it’s very slow and careful. Measured. “Jake, I don’t think- I- getting together wouldn’t be… a good idea. Right now.”

“No! I agree,” Jake says. He deliberately doesn’t take offense in how her shoulders immediately untighten. “I just wanted to- know if we’re still, uh.”

Jake can’t say it. Instead he says, “After the trial- we should talk about it.”

Cassie’s forehead creases between her eyebrows, just a little. But she nods, and Jake is thankful she doesn’t move to leave. If she did, he doesn’t think he would’ve been able to continue.

“But. That could be a while, and I wanted you to know that if you, uh, if you get feelings for someone else, or whatever-”

Cassie laughs. “Who am I getting feelings for, Jake? I’m gonna be _The_ Cassie at school, no-one’s gonna-”

Jake can’t help but smile back at her, even if her smile is more incredulous than anything. “You’ve already made other friends. Some guy’s bound to see what I see.”

That makes her smile tick and then widen. Her gaze drops to the ground, then back up at him, and Jake does his best not to feel like he’s memorizing her, saving this image for later when all he’s got are memories. Her eyes had been the first thing he’d noticed about her when they were kids, back when he barely knew her. Nowadays they make his chest hurt with all the history behind them.

“If it happens,” Cassie starts, “not that it _will_ \- then we’ll talk about it.”

Lots of talking in their future. Jake hopes like hell it’ll happen, even if nothing happens with _them_ \- he wants to keep talking to her.

He nods, and she nods back. This, just the fact of her, is enough to make him want to kiss her- her standing there in her scuffed pyjamas that are too big for her; her bare feet, toes of one foot pressing into the other as a sign of nerves. If they were the kind of people who kissed each other, Jake wouldn’t hesitate. But they were the kind of people whose kisses were rare and stolen, so he stayed at a safe distance.

For a few seconds they just stand there, looking at each other. It’s oddly comfortable, but it also gets Jake’s mind tilting back to last night’s dreams-

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Cassie tells him, “But it was good that we got to spend time apart. If we got together right after- we’d just implode.”

Jake shakes off the creeping thoughts of Tom and tries to imagine what Cassie is saying- them getting together after the war; Rachel still in the ICU and none of them able to look at each other properly- and can’t picture something that fits in reality.

“So what, we’re waiting until we’re stable again?”

“Yeah. I think so.” Cassie scratches at her cheek. “Not- I don’t think we’ll ever be like we used to- not that we’d want to, god, we were kids. But I think it’d be a bad idea to get together right now, with everything.”

Jake nods. He goes to put his hands in his pockets only to have them slide against his pyjama bottoms.

“What if we keep putting this off,” he asks, thinking of tiger claws, the strength he always carried when he was in that morph- bravery, Jake can do. He can do this. “I mean- if Marco didn’t pull us all back together, would we have kept not talking?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yeah.” Jake blows out a breath. “Cassie- I want to be with you. Not right now, maybe, but- someday. I know it’s always been this- this concept we kept out of reach ‘cause we couldn’t do anything with the war on, so we never thought too hard about it, it was all- feelings, that we never did much with.”

Cassie looks at him long enough without speaking that Jake’s palms start to sweat. He doesn’t say anything, partly because he doesn’t want to scare her off and partly because he’s happy to stand here and let the sight of her burn itself onto the back of his eyelids. God, she’s beautiful. Had he ever told her that? He must’ve.

Cassie steps forwards, never dropping his gaze, and leans up and in all the while Jake’s heart kicks up to three times its usual pace, and then she presses her mouth to his.

Oh.

Jake closes his eyes. Her lips feel familiar, though he’s only kissed them a few times- all of her is familiar, even if he hasn’t seen her for the better part of a year. He could see nothing of her for years and he’d still know her on sight, know the sound of her voice like it was his own.

He grips her elbows. Her hands are on his waist, her fingers gentle, her thumb rubbing lines into his side. It slips ever so slightly under his pyjama shirt, a small, warm point of pressure that sinks into his skin.

 _Cassie_ , he thinks. _Always, god, Cassie._

This is more than enough to push the dreams away. This is enough to wipe all thoughts of Tom, of prison, from his head, and replace them with Cassie. Cassie, who he always thought was the only one of them left without a big black stain on their souls, Cassie the gentle, Cassie the only good thing, Cassie-

She leans back before he does. He tries chasing her mouth, but she turns her head.

“Sorry,” he says, and it’s then that he realizes he’s panting.

At this, she looks at him. Her breathing isn’t entirely even, either. “What for?”

“Right,” Jake says. He tries breathing slow. It’s difficult.

“Later,” she reminds him. Her hands are still on his waist, that thumb still rubbing lines into his skin under his shirt. When she takes her hands away, Jake can still feel her warmth.

“We’ll talk,” she says. “We’ll- we’ll see each other more. No radio silence this time.”

Jake watches her eyelashes move with a blink. He can imagine it all too easily: a guy in her class or at a bus stop, offering to study with her or let her through the door first. Someone was bound to get the same thrill from making her laugh that Jake gets. Sure, she’ll still be _The_ Cassie, but under that she’s still Cassie, and that’s more than enough to make people fall in love with her.

Whoever she ends up with, whether it be him or otherwise, Jake just hopes she’s happy. He thinks about saying this, but decides against it.

Later. That was their deal, right? Later. If he did say it, let it be later. Him and Cassie always had their later.

 _I could see you loving someone else_ , Jake doesn’t say. _But you’re it for me, Cass. First and last._

“Nice pyjamas,” is what he says instead.

Cassie blinks. Then she looks down at them and snorts, breaking into a grin. “Hand-me-downs. They were my mom’s.”

“She has great taste.”

“Oh, I know, right?”

They grin at each other until Jake’s hands start itching for his non-existent pockets again.

“Well,” he says. “Uh. Good to clear all that up.”

“It was.” Cassie gives him a smile that’s far too sad for this early in the morning, and suddenly Jake is thinking about Tom again. Jake looks away from Cassie and her sad eyes and says something about going back to his room for a nap before everyone else gets up.

He goes back to his room and lies on the bed. He closes his eyes, but he doesn’t try to sleep- it would drag him back into dreams of Tom. Sometimes in the dreams, he’s saving him: Tom died as a snake in reality, but in the dreams he’s always human, so Jake gets to see his pained expression and hear his shouts as Rachel claws him in grizzly morph or even just as Rachel, pummelling him with her bare hands.

Jake will try to tackle her, knock her to the ground. But she’ll be so heavy he can’t move her, and she’ll keep attacking Tom, who never dies, just keeps screaming no matter how hard Rachel wrecks him. One time he was down to ribbons of skin before Jake woke up.

Sometimes it won’t be Rachel; it’ll be Visser Three. Once it was Mr. Chapman; another time it was Marco’s mom. Another time it was Jake himself, a perfect double, and Jake pushed and pulled, trying to get him away from Tom, who kept screaming, begging Jake to save him, please-

<Hey,> Tobias says from the TV where he’s perched. <You good?>

Jake wonders what made him ask. Maybe his expression- he thinks it was twisting up as he thought about the dreams.

“I’m gonna go for a walk,” he whispers back, mindful of the still-snoring Marco, and pushes himself to his feet.

 

 

 

 

 

There isn’t a lot of grass around the motel, just scruffy tufts of it fringing the parking lot, but Ax makes do. He steps on each tuft in turn and tries not to wrinkle his nose- this is by far the best breakfast he’s ever had. The grass is wispy and dry, nothing like what he’d eaten for years when he lived in the forest, then at the Hork Bajir colony, then in the new section of woods with Tobias.

He swivels his eyestalks when he hears someone approach. Then he turns his whole head, because it’s been years since he noticed that humans get freaked out when Ax just looks at them with his eyestalks.

<Hi, Prince Jake,> Ax says. He considers, briefly, the possibility of a shovel-talk. Those were apparently what happened with the best friend of your partner. Should he be nervous?

Jake gives him a look as he walks up beside him. “You know you haven’t called me that in a while? It’s been good.”

<Yes, you never did like that title.> Ax smiles with his eyes. He might’ve done it sometimes just to watch Jake’s face- never in a mean way. Good natured teasing is all, like would happen between brothers.

At first Ax thinks he accidentally spoke those words in thought-speak, because the next words out of Jake’s mouth are, “Do you miss Elfangor?”

Ax keeps his gaze, but his eyestalks swivel away so he can have something to distract himself. Okay. Not a shovel-talk, then.

He doesn’t think about Elfangor very much anymore, but that is a very determined action: whenever he finds himself thinking about him, he changes his train of thought.

Train of thought. What a strange human phrase. It makes sense, sure, but Ax has always found it odd-

Right. Jake asked a question, and is now looking at Ax like he expects an answer. Ax half expects Jake to apologise and say that Ax doesn’t have to talk about it, but Jake’s gaze is steady and unyielding.

<I do,> is all Ax can say. He almost adds more- he thinks about him most when Earth is getting too strange and he begins feeling homesick. Then, he will imagine speaking to Elfangor about Earth’s many oddities, and sometimes its wonders- the wide range of food, all of it incredible. The unfailing fierceness of the human spirit. Marco.

In his mind, he’s asked Elfangor if he ever gets used to battle. He almost tells Jake that Elfangor rarely replies, in his imagination. The conversations are always one-sided, with Elfangor just looking at him. His expression had said it all, whatever Ax imagined it to be at the time.

But he keeps quiet. His hypothetical lips, as they say, are sealed.

Jake nods. He looks down at the grass Ax is no longer stepping on. “What do you miss most about him,” he asks.

Ax brings his eyestalks back around and looks Jake up and down. There’s something very tight in Jake’s expression, as well as his shoulders. He looks a kind of tired that reminds Ax of the last year of the war; how weary Jake always looked.

Ax tries thinking of a suitable answer to the question and finds it takes a few seconds. <Many things,> is what he comes up with, which is truer than anything. He finds himself following it up with, <He always knew what to say,> thinking of his imagined Elfangor and his silence: Ax remembers the sound of his voice, the comforting weight of it in his head, but he can never replicate it even if it’s just his imagination.

Jake’s cheeks do something funny. Ax has been told that this is what it looks like when someone bites the inside of their mouth.

<What do you miss most about Tom,> Ax asks, because this seems like the right thing to say and if Jake is going to be invasive, so is he.

Jake doesn’t seem surprised by it. He shrugs his shoulders and it looks like an effort. “I can’t think about him without remembering the Yeerk in his head,” he admits. “Without seeing him die under my orders.”

This is fair. Ax sometimes finds himself- not so often anymore, but it was very often at the beginning- picturing Elfangor’s death at the hands of Visser three. Or rather, the mouth- Marco had described it to him once, at Ax’s repeated request, and he thinks Marco had left some finer details out for Ax’s sake.

He’d asked Rachel after that. She’d done the same, but unlike Marco, she gave him more details when he pressed. He still regrets asking.

Jake blows out a breath. “Does it get better?”

Ax thinks about it. He wants to say yes and he can tell that Jake wants to hear it. But honestly, Ax doesn’t think he’s fully processed his brother’s death: he’s acknowledged it, he’s lived with it for years now, but he hasn’t let himself think about it much. He’s had to confront it a little more since he started talking semi-frequently with his father, but even that has involved veering away from the subject of Elfangor.

One thing Ax finds himself dreading about returning to homeworld is the idea that he might have to start processing his death. He doesn’t quite know what that will be like and he’s not eager to find out.

<I think so,> Ax says instead.

It gets him a short, tugged smile, which is a surprise. Jake cocks his head as if to say _, fair enough_.

“Yeah,” he says. “That- yeah.”

Ax wonders if Jake has processed Tom’s death. He doubts it.

<It is very early in the morning to discuss these things,> Ax says, in an attempt to bring the conversation back up from where it’s been plummeting into the dark.

Jake nods again. “Uh-huh. It’s that kind of day.”

<Yes?>

“Yep.”

<Damn.>

Jake laughs. “You said it,” he says, and Ax briefly wonders why they haven’t talked about Tom before- both of their big brothers have been killed by the Yeerks in one way or another. But Ax doesn’t have to think about it very hard to understand why they haven’t talked about this- they haven’t talked about anything, period, for a long time after the war ended.

Ax wonders what it must have been like living with a big brother while knowing there was a Yeerk in his head. Knowing that every time you looked at him, there was an imposter looking back and the real brother was trapped behind his eyes with no control.

It sounds like a special kind of awful that Ax never considered before crash-landing on this planet.

Ax hesitates, but then he says, < Tom would’ve preferred death over living as a Yeerk.>

Jake jerks. It’s a small motion, but still there. Jake closes his eyes and then lifts his hands to press the heels of them to his face, but only for a second before he drops them back to his sides again.

“I know,” Jake says. “I know, I saw- when Tom’s yeerk was in my head and he gave me the memories of when he was in Tom’s-”

He stops and swallows. His eyes close and squeeze shut tight enough that Ax imagines white spots in his vision.

“He wanted to die,” Jake continues eventually. “He’d have preferred it. So. That’s something.”

Ax nods. <Yes,> he offers, not knowing what else to say. <That is something.>

Jake nods back. The silence stretches.

The notch in his throat bobs, and he shakes his head as if to clear it, a strained smile coming onto his face. “So,” he says. “That thing between you and Marco last night- that was, uh, your guys’ version of kissing, right?”

Ah. They were talking about it after all.

<We also human-kissed when I was in morph,> Ax says, which makes him feel like, as humans say, ‘a huge tool,’ and also like he’s giving too much information.

By the look of Jake, he feels the same. Still, Jake’s smile turns into something more real.

“Ooookay,” Jake says. His hands move like he’s going to put them in his pockets, but as he’s in pyjamas, he has none. “Cool. Cool cool cool cool. I’m, um, happy for you two? I mean, it came out of left field a little bit, but you guys seem- you’re good. Together. You’re good for each other.”

<Thank you,> Ax says when Jake bumbles to a stop. <I- am glad we’re good for each other.> He pauses, thinks of a question he’s wanted to ask but didn’t know who to bring it to. This hardly seems the time, but Jake says, “Something up,” sounding awkward but willing, so Ax asks.

<Do you consider what ‘happened last night’ to be an indication that Marco and I are together? As in, a couple. Romantically. I have seen conflicting results on TV, and you and Cassie have kissed multiple times without being ‘together’->

Ax thinks that bringing up Cassie was a step too far, because Jake’s hands go to his nonexistant pockets again and this time he looks more irritated than exasperated that they aren’t there.

“Uh, I mean. Yes? I’m not exactly an expert. But yes. Marco seemed- he was really happy last night, after he came into the motel room.”

<Oh!> Ax knots his fingers together, a combination of nerves and pleasure, and hastily tries to present himself in a more formal manner. <That’s good.>

“Mm-hm.” Jake bobs his head stiffly. “Yeah, so. Good for you guys.”

In what looks like an impulse decision, he leans in and gives Ax a very quick clap on the shoulder, leaning back like he can’t do it fast enough.

Ax nods, and for a moment that looks like the end of it. But then Jake stops halfway through turning away and says, “Hey, uh. Is Marco gonna go with you back to the andalite homeworld?”

<I don’t think he would wish to go,> Ax says after a second of internally freaking out.

Relief passes over Jake’s face, but Ax politely pretends not to notice. “Yeah, I don’t think so either. Hey, is Tobias going?”

Ax goes to repeat his previous answer before stopping to think about it. Tobias has always seemed like an outsider on this planet, and Ax knows that this has been true even before he became a _nothlit_. An alien planet is definitely a huge step, but maybe Tobias would be interested in leaving the place he’s rarely felt a part of.

Ax wonders if he’d like to meet his parents- they are Tobias’ grandparents, after all, which isn’t a fact he thinks about much. He doesn’t think Tobias spends a lot of time on it, either- Ax has never invited Tobias to talk to his father, and his father hasn’t asked to speak to Tobias-

“What,” Jake says. Ax supposes his face must have done something, because Jake is looking a little concerned.

Ax tries to figure out a way to put it that doesn’t make him sound like an idiot, but can’t: <I just realized I have not mentioned to either of my parents that they have a grandson.>

Jake’s face does something that makes Ax think he’s doing his best not to laugh at him.

“Right,” is all that Jake says. “Well.”

<Well,> Ax agrees.

“Might want to tell them.”

<Yes. I will- do that.>

“Good idea.” Jake goes for his pockets one more time and this time he looks down and sighs. “Goddamnit. I’m going to get changed. I don’t know how girls do the whole no-pockets thing.”

<I’m sure they cope,> Ax says dryly, waiting for Jake to realize that he and his people also live without pockets, as don’t tend to wear clothes, but Jake just says he’ll see Ax later and starts walking back to the motel.

Ax watches him go, then turns back to the grass. He presses his hoof to it, not the part that allows him to eat, but the hard edge of it, grinding down. He will not miss this kind of grass when he goes back home. Other things, he will miss- the more he considers this the more he comes up with other things to miss- but he will be relieved at the comforting familiarity that comes with the lush grass of his homeworld.

As he eats, he absently tries imagining Tom’s face. He’d been quite similar to Jake, his eyes especially, but other than that Ax doesn’t remember much about his looks. He then tries picturing Elfangor, and is only marginally more successful. After that he channels his focus into the grass, concentrating on the dryness of it instead of more dangerous things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ha, you know how I said there were two chapters left last time? NOW there's two chapters left. For realsies.

**Author's Note:**

> here's my [tumblr](http://theappleppielifestyle.tumblr.com/).


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